Looking for Alaska Book Review

Looking for Alaska is not the regular boy-meets-girl love story with all the smoking, drinking, sex and money. It wasn’t all about all those interesting things, it had common teenage drama, just more juicer. It made you think back on your own life and decisions. I’m a person that mostly read books that are urban. Non-urban books would have to be requested to me, so reading Looking for Alaska was a big, fantastic change. it helped understand the loss of an important person and learn how to accept others and their choices. The overall setting of the book is the characters attending a boarding school, that definitely divided the poor and rich, which they talk a lot about in the book. They call the rich kids the “Weekday Warriors”, because they go to school during the week, but then they go home to their nice houses every weekend. Mr.Green also introduce common teenage rituals like pranks, parties and crazyt bets.


John Green was born August 24, 1977 in Indianapolis. Three weeks after his birth his family moved to Michigan, Alabama then finally settled in Florida. He used his own personal adventures to put into Looking for Alaska. Green has spoken openly about being bullied and how it made his teenage life miserable. Want to know how he got the idea to write The Fault In Our Stars? John actually worked at hospital as a student chaplain while he was enrolled at University of Chicago Divinity School, although he never went because his experience of working with children with life-threatening illness inspired him to be an author and later on write The Fault In Our Stars.  He won multiple Awards for his books in his career. In 2007 Green and his brother, Hank, started video blogs to communicate on Youtube. Through his videos he caught the attention of a community called the nerdfighters, they raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight poverty around the world. John and Hank continue to upload video twice a week on their youtube channel : vlogbrothers. Green has been a finalist twice in the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Last but not least Green’s books has been published in more than a dozen languages.


The main character, Miles “Pudge” Halter was not popular at all back in his hometown in Florida. His life become the complete opposite of what it use to be. He has friends now, and experience things he never thought he would come face to face to. The one person that gave pudge a reason to make Culver Creek, his boarding school, a great place was the emotionally confused, mysterious and beautiful Alaska Young. They grew an undefying attachment towards each other. Alaska was a closed person about her personal life, yet she was so outspoken and straight forward on her beliefs and what she thought. Pudge and his roommate, the Colonel, not his real name, become close as friends also. Colonel was the take charge friend and believed that he should be loyal to his friends and they should be loyal back no matter what. He didn’t have much back home, but his heart was bigger than anything and he loved his mother more than anything in the world. He is not as forgiving as Pudge, but he soon learn how to be.


The importance of reading a young adult book is the similarities you have with your own life. The author just gets what your going through and put your thoughts in ways you can’t express on your own. I think the reason I connected with this book is because it caught me at a questionable time in my life. I was having mixed feelings and didn’t know the direction I was heading. One question that is going to come up a lot in the book is how to escape a labyrinth you are out in, a labyrinth is like a maze. And I took and, and still do, that question with me through my everyday life. No matter if it was me and my mom arguing, stressed about school, whatever it was I found a way to face it and actually deal with it instead of running away from it then having to face it or deal with it again later. The confidence of the character and the strong will they have for their opinions made me stronger for mine.  

Looking For Alaska by John Green

Publisher : Dutton’s Children Book

March 2005

221

Young - Adult Fiction

Creative Piece:

In Looking for Alaska there was a divide between the rich in poor kids. It led me to think we are kids why are we worried about somebody else if we wasn’t in their shoes. People don’t enjoy their life anymore, they would rather sit around be mean to others and gossip. Why are we treating others with such disrespectful if we are all going to end up in one place? Six feet under.


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Screen Shot 2014-11-04 at 2.19.46 PM

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