Looking For Alaska

Reader reviewed by Ashley

Looking for Alaska is about a boy named Miles who is fasinated with people's last words. Name a (dead) person, he'll tell you their last words. But Miles isn't happy with his life in Florida, where he can't find the Great Perhaps. Instead, he chooses to go to boarding school in Alabama where he meets Alaska. Alaska is beautiful, funny, witty, and slightly messed up. A girl like this might actually help him find the Great Perhaps and the answer to getting out of the labyrinth.

By far this is one of my favorite books. It kept me mesmerized with the story as unexpected turns were taken. This book was a real eye opener, and has definitely changed the way I look at things. I'd recommend Looking for Alaska to anyone!

Reader reviewed by Jonathon Arntson

Writing: 5/5 
Originality: 5/5 
Cover: 5/5 
Characters: 5/5 
Reading experience: 5/5 

Candid and prolifically expressive, John Green's "Looking for Alaska" is a first-person novel about a scrawny kid nick-named Pudge. Obsessed with people's last words, Pudge gets inspired to search for the Great Perhaps by transferring to a boarding school in Alabama, similar to the one the author attended. While Miles, 'Pudge', searches for this Great Perhaps, he encounters some well-rounded and vividly three dimensional characters. First, we meet his roommate Chip, 'the Colonel', a short, stocky and cocky poverty-stricken scholarship student from downstate. Through the Colonel, we meet Alaska, who cannot be described in a few words, though Green does a fantastic job throughout the novel. We also meet a few other characters who keep the book grounded, while providing an intense dramatic foil for Pudge, Alaska, and the Colonel, further popping them off the page. 
The first two-thirds of the book are chapters titled by the days left until the After. Although you are wondering what the After is, Green's cleverly crafted plot keeps you distracted and entertained enough to not peek. While this is a precarious tactic for an author to choose, we often find ourselves a rabbit with a carrot hanging an inch from our nose, Green uses techniques otherwise complex and simplifies them. He uses homework assignments and school pranks as a catalyst for blossoming friendships, rivalries, and complicating Miles search for the Great Perhaps, and I ate it up. 
I cannot talk about the After. Not because it would be a spoiler, but because Green's writing is so exemplary, I almost feel incongruous just mentioning his finale, even though this is a review. 
I wish I had read this years ago, but I put it off until this week. I strongly recommend this book and, in fact, I urge both young adults and adults to read this novel. You will find yourself in a pursuit for knowledge yourself, and while it may not be the Great Perhaps, "Looking for Alaska" will certainly get your juices flowing.

Reader reviewed by Jill

Reader reviewed by Gwen Kozak

Looking for Alaska
I had no interest in reading Looking for Alaska by John Green, even when it was forced into my hands by my best friend.  I finished what I was originally reading, and I started to read.  I was immediately hooked into the world that John Green created for his characters.  I did not stop reading until the book was done.  Miles "Pudge" Halter is a braniac and a nerd who has never had any close friends.  He has had no danger in his life until he goes to a boarding school to find where he belongs in life.  He soon finds himself in with a group of people he would normally stay away from, and they become his best friends.  Alaska Young and "The Colonel" are among those that take Pudge under their wing and teach him how to really live. Even when he goes out of his comfort zone, Pudge is happy for once in his life.  After a life changing event, Pudge must learn to live without something he has taken for granted.  Looking for Alaska is a book that you can reread over and over again, and love it every time.

Reader reviewed by Lauren

I'm not a huge fan of realistic fiction but I heard a lot of good things about this book and decided to give it a try. I am so glad I did! Excellent read. I loved the main character and his journey through the book. I felt his emotions and was pulling for him the whole time. The book was hilarious and heart breaking and I plan on reading everything John Green has written. You will fall in love with Pudge and his roommate and their strange but awesome sidekicks, one of whom is Alaska. I recommend this book to everyone!

Reader reviewed by PLeannah

 When I first picked up this book I was
reading it because my partner is a monster John Green fan. I have
heard a lot of buzz about the book and was really excited for the
chance to pick it up. From the moment I started reading the book I
was enticed. Miles was the exact same kid I was a few years ago, and
he was going through the same problems. Not only was I able to relate
to Miles, but also to Alaska. Everybody has at one point or another
encountered an Alaska in their life, and when Alaska leaves, she will
leave with a beautiful mystery about it. The book easily could have
ended at the end of the first part, but Green took the journey to a
place I had been wondering about when I read many books, After.

Once I picked up this book there was
no putting it down. Miles had my heart along with Alaska, Chip,
Takumi, and Lara. Each character contributed very well to the book,
and each character had a story and a lesson. While some of Alaska's
lessons weren't always on the most tasteful topics, they were well
done. Green approached an uncomfortable situation very carefully and
made the purpose very clear.

Overall, I thought the book was a
careful dance among a hurricane of teenage problems. My only regret
is that I did not have the chance to read it a few years ago when it
came out (where the lessons I now know, may have been better used).
This book really seemed to accomplish some great things though, it
created a controversy about right and wrong, and serves to teach
every teenager valuable life lessons. Each young adult should get a
copy of this book the summer before they enter high school. I hope it
touches your hearts and puts your mind at ease when you realize there
is a little bit of Miles, and a little bit of Alaska in all of us.

This was my first John Green book I ever read. I read it on a vacation, and I always wanted to get back to the vehicle so I could start reading again. It's startlingly beautiful. I want a Miles! This group of friends he finds at school are some of the coolest people I have ever read about! I even started googling people last words after I finished the book. Weird.

Here comes one of those books that you just can’t talk about without giving away a big ol’ spoiler. John Green’s “Looking for Alaska” revolves around a spoiler, so if you haven’t read it and don’t want to know what happens, stop reading! If you’ve read the book, or if you are okay with finding out what happens, have at this blog post!

What struck me most about “Looking for Alaska” is Alaska herself. One of my favorite experiences when reading a book is when an author makes you fall in love with a character, and I fell in loooooooove with Alaska. With each Smoking Hole, Strawberry Hill, Blue Citrus interaction you get with her, you just fall deeper and deeper in love with the girl, and you can understand why no guy would stand a chance if they were ever in her presence.

So of course all of our hearts break when Alaska dies in a mysterious car accident. Here is where Green continues to demonstrate his amazing writing skills in that he accurately portrays the mixed emotions one can go through when experiencing the death of a loved one. Obviously there’s grief, especially for Miles, the main character of the story. In Alaska’s special circumstance, there is the suspicion that her death was a suicide, prompting Miles’s anger at what he perceives as selfishness on Alaska’s part. Miles in particular has a hard time reconciling his anger and his grief, and Green brilliantly portrays that you don’t have to have one at the expense of another. Death is a complicated matter, suicide is even more complicated, and there is no all-encompassing answer that can make the loss of a friend an easy process to go through. Green, however, provides a text that may help teenagers get through this process if they sadly have to go through it themselves. Regardless of whether or not a reader of “Looking for Alaska” has lost a loved one, they will certainly connect with Green’s characters and their attempts to make their lives as meaningful as possible.

Great "Coming-of-Age" story!

*I would like to keep this review spoiler-free, but I highly doubt that will happen as it reached me in a very emotional place that deserves to be talked about. Read with caution or consider yourself warned.*



Looking For Alaska is the first book that has ever made me immediately look forward to rereading it upon turning the last page. My grandmother recently died and though she’d lived a long life, it’s the first death in my life that’s ever reached into my very soul and twisted it all up. For that reason, I believe I connected more with the melancholy in Looking For Alaska which leads me to believe a reread sometime in the future will open up the story even more for me.

I love Pudge. He’s not the type of boy I ever would have liked in that way, but I love him all the same. I love the way he’s okay with living in invisibility and the way he grows to not be okay with it anymore. I love how awkward and sincere and so incredibly real he is. I love how he actually has a brain and uses it to drink or smoke when he wants but to also to it down when he doesn’t. I love how he actually grieves. He doesn’t just mourn for a few days and commence the moving on. He gets angry and he gets sad. He gets annoyed and he gets nostalgic. Ultimately, he learns.

I’m going to be quite honest here and say that I really didn’t like Alaska. I hated the way she tried so hard to be an enigma. I hated that she seemed to refuse to deal with the grief and depression that seemed to be living inside her. I hated the way she led on poor Pudge. I did, in fact, love the way that Pudge was honest enough with himself to admit that she annoyed the crap out of him at times.

The Nusthell: Looking For Alaska is the story of a boy’s attempt at finding out what may wait for him outside his box. It’s also a story of grief and loss and drinking and first everythings. Despite the short length of this story, it’s likely to make you feel an entire gauntlet of emotions from happiness and laughter to sadness and possibly tears.