Looking For Alaska by John Green

Looking For Alaska by John Green

Dutton Books, 221 pages
Borrowed

"Miles 'Pudge' Halter is abandoning his safe-okay, boring-life. Fascinated by the last words of famous people, Pudge leaves for boarding school to seek what a dying Rabelais called the 'Great Perhaps.' Pudge becomes encircled by friends whose lives are everything but safe and boring. Their nucleus is razor-sharp, sexy, and self -destructive Alaska, who has perfected the arts of pranking and evading school rules. Pudge falls impossibly in love. When tragedy strike the close-knit group, it is only in coming face-to- face with death that Pudge discovers the value of living and loving unconditionally. John Green's stunning debut marks the arrival of a stand-out new voice in young adult fiction. "

Now, let me start from the beginning. My other fellow bloggers (hint: Emily and Hannah) kept saying to me over the summer that I had to read this book called Looking For Alaska. Finally, I said to just give me the book already before both of them spoiled the whole thing. So, I sat down for my nightly reading ritual and opened this little black novel.

The next time I talked to Emily, she asked what I thought of the book so far, with much enthusiasm I might add. But my reaction was that I was only fifty pages in and I really didn't understand why she had been so insistent that I read it. She told me just to keep reading and you'll understand why.

While they found this book laugh out loud funny (there was only one part that I honestly giggled), I think that I took something different from this book than they did (Or they just told me the humorous moments over the more in-depth ones to get me to read it. I have been in a major historical fiction phase lately.) What I received from this book was a consistent thought throughout that touches the mind of every teenager, or person for that matter, at a certain point in their lives. Besides Pudge's "Great Perhaps", life's labyrinth and how we escape it is the other main objective that is discussed. Perhaps in writing this novel, John Green was trying to convey that we all have to decide how to get along in life.

Along with the religious class that Pudge and his classmates are required to take (Which, after reading about, I believe that every high school student should take.), and the mindset that everyone needs to choose what path they are to lead, this book simply makes you think. Thinking is not a common use of time anymore, but it can enrich our lives and this novel has certainly enriched mine.

Rating: 4 stars- I really liked it. Worth borrowing.