Review: Looking for Alaska

Title: Looking for Alaska
Author: John Green
Page: 221
Published: 2005

Summary: Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps." Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Review: When I initially finished reading Looking for Alaska, I was completely overwhelmed by the end of the novel which involves too many spoilers to count, and I considered it to be an almost 5-Star book. I realise now that that had a lot to do with the fact that it was somewhere around four in the morning and I was not only sleep deprived but in love with the ending that really does make the book worth reading.

I can't deny it. John Green has a way with words, especially when it comes to the ending of Looking of Alaska. He knows how to take a novel and play with it enough to make it sound like an intriguing read, and he also manages to make his stories seem realistic and have just a proper touch of drama that could theoretically happen in life. Despite all of that, I found Looking for Alaska to be just an average teen novel, and while it did have its moments, it did not deserve the 4.5 Stars that I had first given it, so 3.5 is what I'll stick with for the purpose of this review.

There were times while I was reading the book that I was wondering if we were ever going to come to a point where something exciting or dramatic would happen. I am all for novels where the merry band of friends go around and do crazy things like get drunk, party and plan pranks to pass the time, but when there's so much hype surrounding an author, I expected more, and while I did get more, I don't think it was enough.

SPOILER: [I kind of had predicted that Alaska would either get injured or disappear/die/something during the book, but I hadn't expected why she would have. After we got past the fact that she wasn't going to see her boyfriend, the reason behind her leaving was predictable but I have to give John Green some credit. It takes a whole lot of love to leave school at (I think it was three) in the morning to go and leave flowers on her grave. Even if she thought she was the cause of her mother's death, it was beautiful.]

I found the end of the book, not the last scene, to be funny and sweet, but the very last scene of the book, where we were with Miles as he thought about the religion teacher (who I loved. The religion class was such an awesome concept.) and Alaska's question and he came to his conclusions about life and getting out of the labyrinth to be one of the best endings to a book that I've read, and that's why I may or may not have fallen in love with Looking for Alaska.

To be honest, I most likely would not reread it, but I would reread that last scene and I would see a film version if they were to create one. I do hope that other John Green books are as wonderful as the ending of Looking for Alaska and I will continue to read his works.

Rating: ★★★★ 3.5/5 Stars