Review ~ Looking for Alaska by John Green

TITLE: Looking for Alaska

AUTHOR: John Green
COPYRIGHT: 12/28/2006
TYPE: Young Adult
PAGES: 256
SERIES:  No

REASON FOR READ:

Loved The Fault in Our Stars and thought he why not try his other works.

SUMMARY (from Goodreads):

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, 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, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.

THOUGHTS/OPINION:

It is hard for me to type this review and I think the probably is simply I didn't like it. I found it hard to read and eventually hard to finish. It wasn't a book that I just had to know what would happen next. In fact it was a book I was flipping and skimming through just to complete. The mystery wasn't anything mysterious for me and I found I just couldn't connect with the characters at all. There was nothing about Pudge, Alaska, or anyone else in this book that said, "hey connect with me my character is fascinating". To me that was the sad part. I really enjoy the writer. I think Mr. Green has a fantastic talent and not just because of "The Fault In Our Stars" even though that was a top 5 read from last year. No it has more to do with the fact that Mr. Green can paint such a vivid picture of the setting and the atmosphere you feel yourself smelling what he describes or worse that you are soaking wet from the rain. 

That just wasn't enough to save this story for me. I always struggle with young adult books and have a hard time reading them because of the maturity level and that might be what was missing in this book. The characters were just too immature or over mature and not believable for their age at times I found I wanted to shake them, smack them, or yell at them. Other times I rolled my eyes wondering how in the world had they survived to this age or worse nope not going to make it in the real world. While I didn't connect to this book or characters Mr. Green did a fantastic job on writing in general which is the only reason this was a completed book verses a DNF.  

FINAL GRADE: 1 star out of 5

Would you recommend this story? Sadly I would not.

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