Review - Looking for Alaska by John Green

Published by Harper Collins
Published 3 July 2006

Summary from Goodreads - Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave "the Great Perhaps" even more (Francois Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then . . . After. Nothing is ever the same. 

I honestly don't really know what to say about this book, other than, when I turned the last page, I knew i'd just read something special.  I still can't adequately describe to you why I loved this book so much and I know it's one of those books that I will never really be able to process my feelings for into words.  I read a lot of books and i've never come across and author that has it, whatever it may be.  But John Green has it.  Miles along with the array of secondary characters; Colonel, Alaska, Takumi and Lara are so deftly formed.  They are mundane yet extraordinary.  Every single character was genuine; hopelessly flawed but ultimately forgiven.  There is nothing special about them, but they become special.  

The addition of religion and famous last words to the story added more depth and rather than distract you from the main plotline, they enhanced it, giving you as the reader more insight the characters and a greater understanding of their actions.  You go on this quest with Miles to help him find the Great Perhaps, you follow him through the awkward moments, you jump for joy when things go well and you hold his hand when nothing makes sense anymore.  

The philosophical elements really intrigued me, I loved going to class with Miles when the Old Man was teaching.  I loved hearing and becoming familiar to the different cultures and their beliefs and what happens when we're no more, what happens when people we know.  I love that it's a book that everyone can take something different from.   I do believe that Miles found the Great Perhaps, thats what I took away from the book.  I think the trials and suffering and happiness he got to feel were the stepping stones to his own personal Great Perhaps.  I think the level of maturity he shows when the story progresses and the challenges he has to face are proof that he found his way out of the dark, that he's a better person when the story concludes because of the things that have happened to him.  That Alaska has shaped him into a new person, a person who took on the Great Perhaps and found his way out of the labyrinth.

Looking for Alaska is tragic and lighthearted and heartbreaking and funny.  It's everything you could ever hope to get out of a reading experience and more.  Some people are authors, this man, he is a writer.  A write that can capture the soul of a teenage boy in just a few words.  I leave you with my favourite quote from the book.  (a quote that I actually underlined in my copy of the book.  yes.  I defaced a book.) 

"So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane."