Boring.
I've read such books for THOUSANDS of times.
It's all exactly the same story: a boy goes to boarding school. Finds a girl. Falls in love. Can't take her. Takes another girl. The girl he wanted from the beginning takes an interest in him.
Even the differences between this book and the plan above don't make it better or more interesting. This time it was an absolutely ordinary boy (even his obsession with oter people's last word don't change this fact). And the girl he wanted was an absolutely unattractive alcohol- and drug-addicted bitch and whore without any wit and who had ratted her friends. I hate this girl. I hate it when boys fall in love with such bithes.
Honestly, when this bitch Alaska ***attention, there is gonna be a SPOILER!!!!*** diead, I was soo happy! But when it all turned to a whole-school tragedy and into a public nudity, it freaked me out. Suck bithes should not be honored and respected.
I really think it all happened just because the author is male, and men (we all know it) love spoiled bithes and whores. He tried to make her look smart and not so shallow. You see, she was reading "The General in His Labyrinth" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Vonnegut's "Cat's craddle". Just to pick up any book by a famous author and read it again and again for months is NOT smart. Any mental diseased person can do that. ( )

Looking for Alaska is full of quirky characters, which are my favorite types of characters because I don't know anyone who doesn't have a quirk.

Pudge memorizes famous last words.
The Colonel memorizes geographic capitals.
Alaska is mysterious, funny, and trying to figure out how to get out of the labyrinth of suffering.

John splits the book into two parts: Before and After. This separation worked for me because I think many of us separate our lives this way. We see ourselves in the Before, then something happens that changes us forever and we are in the After.

Like John said in his vlog, there is no substitution for emotional connection. Sex doesn't fill that gap. Pudge goes looking for the Great Perhaps and somehow finds it in a dismal, tiny private school where the rich kids and the poor kids are in a constant prank war. He not only finds The Girl and himself. He finds life.

The thing I loved about Pudge's decision to leave his family and few friends for boarding school was that it was selfish. Sometimes being selfish is what needs to be done. People become unhappy and let themselves get into a routine that eats away at them, convincing themselves they can't change anything. But Pudge leaves because he knows that is what he needs to do for himself. So there is a time and place for selfishness, and in the beginning Pudge uses it wisely, and in the end he doesn't. Looking for Alaska shows us how one choice changes everything. ( )

"I go to seek a Great Perhaps." - Francois Rabelais’ last words

Culver Creek, one hundred and thirty six days before…

From the moment the reader is introduced to Looking for Alaska’s protagonist, Miles Halter, we are graced with a charming, naïve and idealistic fifteen-year old, with a penchant for remembering famous figures’ last words. Miles becomes entranced by some of these words, and decides to attend his father’s former boarding school to seek out Rabelais’ Great Perhaps.

So we follow Miles to Culver Creek in rural Alabama. There he meets a motley crew of teenagers; his roommate, Chip, amusingly and appropriately referred to as the “Colonel”, who gives a skinny Miles the nickname “Pudge”; Takumi, the mild-mannered and loyal Japanese rapper; and Lara, the beautiful and sweet Romanian. And it is here, on his first day, that Miles meets Alaska. Sexy, impulsive, and dangerously alluring Alaska. This small group of friends orbits around the enigmatic young misfit, getting themselves into all kinds of harmless mischief, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, breaking curfews and scheming pranks. For Miles, Alaska is unobtainable but addictive, and he is drawn closer and closer into her web of chaos. She catches his attention from the off, the voracious reader bestowing him with the mysterious last words of Simón Bolívar…

"How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?"

After. A shocking event occurs half way through the book that shatters this little world and causes the circle of friends to spin into a whirlwind of emotions; guilt, anger, love, betrayal and grief. Most of all, they learn about loss. The loss of childhood, the loss of before and the shock of after.

There is a beautiful, poignant symmetry to this book. We begin one hundred and thirty six days before, and end one hundred and thirty six days after. In that time, all our characters have traversed a long and difficult journey from adolescence to adulthood, learning about life and love along the way. Interestingly I read this book directly after Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book which, though a completely different story and style of writing, has many parallels in theme to Alaska.

Devastatingly compelling, quietly philosphical and ultimately brutal, Looking for Alaska is possibly the best young adult book I have ever read, and is a remarkable debut for the effervescent John Green who seems to be popping up all over the place (see his blog here). I'm not sure my words will do justice to how I felt about this book. After finishing it, I could not even think about reading another book for over three days (very unlike me), and I still find myself thinking about Alaska now. An absolute joy to read.

A deeply personal coming-of-age tale of what to do when the unthinkable happens. And the ultimate question, as Alaska herself asked. How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?

It was a great book! Way too much drugs, alcohol and sex. ( )

Reviewed by Me for TeensReadToo.com

Miles Halter is the type of high-schooler who always faded into the background at his public school in Florida. He had few friends, by choice as much as by fate, and wanted only to study his passion--memorizing the last words of people who had died. After reading the dying words of poet Francois Rabelais, "I go to seek a Great Perhaps", Miles is convinced that there's more to life than what he's so far experienced.

So Miles sets off to spend his junior and senior years at Culver Creek, a private boarding school in Alabama. There he gains his first nickname "Pudge" (a misnomer, by far, since Miles is quite skinny); meets his first love, Alaska Young; has his first sexual encounter with a Romanian girl named Lara; and gains two great male friends, Chip "The Colonel" Martin and Takumi Hikohito. He also experiences the joys and sickness of getting drunk, the strangeness of smoking cigarettes, and the unadulterated pleasure of playing pranks.

Pudge's new group of friends have their own quirks--The Colonel memorizes countries, capitals, and populations; Alaska collects books for her Life's Library that she hasn't yet read; Takumi relishes being The Fox. They all work together to irritate their teachers, avoid confrontation with The Eagle, the school's dean, and pull off pranks against the rich Weekday Warriors that are the popular clique at Culver Creek.

But LOOKING FOR ALASKA is mostly the story of growing up, of falling in love, of dealing with loss, and getting through life as best that you can. With wonderful dialogue, fascinating prose, and characters that are so real you'll think you know them personally, this is a book well worth reading. Not just is it the story of a group of teenagers looking to find their way out of the labryinth of loss, or just the story of finding our Great Perhpas, LOOKING FOR ALASKA is about living the best life that can be led.

I loved this story, and highly recommend it. Once you do, you'll realize it's no surprise that it won the Teen's Top 10 Awards--in fact, it probably deserves more. ( )