Review: Looking for Alaska by John Green

 

Title: Looking for Alaska

Author: John Green

Published:March 03, 2005

Book Description:

 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 strikes 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.

My Thoughts:

Before I start my review for this book I will just say that I have finished also An Abundance of Katherines and also Paper Towns and I now understand the appeal of John Green Books and also why they are popular and why also some people don't like them. These books, I think, are the books you either love or hate.  (Although The Fault in Our Stars is loved by all period ) :D

So onward with Looking for Alaska. I think this book for me is interesting but a little bit predictable. (I predicted how it will end) Maybe it was just me.

Honestly I am having difficulties expressing my thoughts over John Green Books, I think I have the grasp of what he want to tell to us but then after a while I forget what it is. So for my convenience, I will just use  keywords on the things I found or discovered.

Friendship and Loyalty: Since they are in a school setting I think Pudge who is new there with almost no idea about how the school works, find some friends, some real friends and learn about loyalty. I think I understand that today loyalty is somewhat not strong. People tend to leave their friends whenever there's a problem but in this book I see friends who are always there no matter what.

This book depicts a NOT PERFECT setting. In which I mean we can see them smoking, drinking while inside the school premises. It is a ballsy and bold thing to do in a book which became popular.I can see why some people actually questioned and are skeptical about this being read my teenagers or young adult. But that is the truth. Not all students are the "I study all the time-Lessons are Important- kind of people, there will still be students, who are responsible in the studying department but does all the crazy stuff.

The pacing of the story is a little bit boring for me. Characters are interesting enough though. Predictability is an issue though. Something big happens  (normally happens to all books) and then after that Pudge and the others investigate things. The problem is that I already know the cause even before they knew it. I caught the hint earlier so I think keen readers will be spoiled already when they read that part.

All in all my experience with this book, although I like it, it is really inferior after reading The Fault in Our Stars.

I give this book 3 whales.