Looking for Alaska Review

“I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. 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 hurricane.” 

- John Green, Looking for Alaska 

Looking for Alaska by John Green is amazing written novel for young adults. It incorporates love and tragedy a combination that draws the reader in. It starts with a young boy  in his teenage years looking for something new and getting away from the life he's so used to. Looking for a great perhaps, and in looking for all of that he meets new friends and a girl that changes his life. Miles Halter enters a new environment where he's nicknamed Pudge because of his contradicting tall and skinny structure. Through out the book they face many challenges, The Eagle, their World Religions teacher, studying for finals, how to spend the holidays, and even pulling off the biggest prank of the year. They’re friendships still remain even when another team player is no longer in the game. They fight and argue, they make up, but most importantly they play video games with the sound off. No matter how bad things get they pull through. Looking for Alaska presents a group a friends that shows solidarity in their best and worst times. It gives an outlook on friendship and the value of life and the people you care about. Looking for Alaska captures a lot of feelings. It doesn’t leave out any real life details. You really get to grow attached to each of the characters as they reveal more about themselves. They each have little details that stand out, The Colonel’s love for his mother, Alaska’s fear of going home, and Pudge’s obsession of famous last words, and more of those little details become more aware to you as you read. Pudge’s struggle, Alaska’s struggle, and The Colonel’s struggle. All of their characters have something they struggle with individually and as a unit. As John Green’s first novel its also the best. “Will we ever escape this labyrinth of suffering?” was a question that come up that caught my attention, because it can mean something different to everyone. This book will affects each person that reads it differently, and how they connect to the story and each character. Pudge, The Colonel, Takumi, and Alaska will always share memories and experiences that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. 

Poem 

Pudge: 

She’s everything that makes my world stop

My heart skip a beat

My fingertips turn to ice

Alaska’s touch is as cold as the words that roll off her tongue

She tastes like cigarettes and liquor 

I long for that taste again

I’m hungry for a women I’ll never taste again

Alaska: 

I’m in love with him 

And even though you’ll never hear me say it

I’m in love with you too

I’m so many things

But not enough of the right ones

I hate to kill you with my serpent's tongue 

But I’ve been hiding in the grass so long 

I forgot what I’ve become

Alaska: He knows so many last words but he will never know mine

Pudge: I know so many last words but I will never know hers