Looking for Alaska is one of the coming of age books that will stick with you. Between the youthful antics of the teens (smoking, drinking, dreaming about sex and everything in between), the struggles of being a teen going to a boarding school and trying to figure out independence, and then the death of a friend - this book has it all.

From a personal standpoint, as a high schooler who lost a dear friend as in this book, I completely related to the emotional upheaval, the desperate search for answers, the lingering and lasting guilt of living.

Looking for Alaska may not be for the younger teen, but as a parent, I would be okay with my older, mature teen reading it. And, I think as a parent, this book is a good tool to see what it is your kids are doing behind your back. Come on, we all did stuff behind our parents’ backs.

Enjoy - John Green is a masterful storyteller. ( )

School

Book two for Pilgrimage Book Club. A young adult book but with a thoughtful look at the meaning of life and what happens after we die. KIRKUS REVIEWThe Alaska of the title is a maddening, fascinating, vivid girl seen through the eyes of Pudge (Miles only to his parents), who meets Alaska at boarding school in Alabama. Pudge is a skinny (?irony? says his roommate, the Colonel, of the nickname) thoughtful kid who collects and memorizes famous people?s last words. The Colonel, Takumi, Alaska and a Romanian girl named Lara are an utterly real gaggle of young persons, full of false starts, school pranks, moments of genuine exhilaration in learning and rather too many cigarettes and cheap bottles of wine. Their engine and center is Alaska, given to moodiness and crying jags but also full of spirit and energy, owner of a roomful of books she says she?s going to spend her life reading. Her center is a woeful family tragedy, and when Alaska herself is lost, her friends find their own ways out of the labyrinth, in part by pulling a last, hilarious school prank in her name. What sings and soars in this gorgeously told tale is Green?s mastery of language and the sweet, rough edges of Pudge?s voice. Girls will cry and boys will find love, lust, loss and longing in Alaska?s vanilla-and-cigarettes scent. (Fiction. YA)

Not nearly as good as [b:An Abundance of Katherines|49750|An Abundance of Katherines|John Green|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1211230733s/49750.jpg|48658]. Too much angst. Not enough humor. ( )

An exceptional book that I have no problem pushing on others. Here are characters that pull you in, that make you care what happens as well as how they react to the events in the story. A coming of age story like Catcher in the Rye, or Separate Peace. Throw in a little hopeless geek love with the friendships and out comes a wonderful story to think on for some time. You may even want to revisit later to enjoy again or see if your reading changes with future experience.
Cheers to those willing to pick up this fine book and explore the "Great Perhaps." ( )