“Looking For Alaska”, John Green’s thrilling coming of age story captivates you from the first page. Miles Pudge Halter is inspired by a quote from poet François Rabelais – “I go to seek a Great Perhaps” and believes that there is more to life. He heads off to a prestigious Culver Creek boarding school in search of that “Great Perhaps.” Once there, he rubs elbows with the prankster roommate Chip Martin, also known as “The Colonel,” and the deeply disturbed and sexy Alaska Young. Alaska and the Colonel, both master pranksters, drag Miles into their world and show him a “Great Perhaps” that he never believed possible.
Green’s characters are some of the most realistic teenage portrayals that I have ever read. The winner of the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, the book is divided into two parts. The “before,” which consists of 128 days leading up to the “after.” The first half of the book, although somewhat sluggish, builds anticipation for what is to come; what will happen after the 128 days.
The second section of the book is hard to describe without giving away a major plot element. However, it deals with Miles and the Colonel who both become obsessed with trying to find out what happened.
Green’s teenagers are deeply flawed and reading the story from Miles’ perspective makes it feel like you are reading one of the many biographies that Miles loves so much.
John Green succeeds in making you love and sympathize for his characters especially with the most hilarious “almost, but not really” sex scene in a book that I have ever read.
The question that this book asks of everyone is taken from the last words of Simón Bolívar, “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?” That question is what drives the novel, and at the end, Miles, and the reader, have a pretty good idea of the answer.
Although not the best novel ever written, it is definitely one of the best written. John Green does not just stop with books, he has a blog at sparksflyup.com and YouTube videos done with his bother. Indeed, the “Nerd Fighters,” have become an Internet phenomenon.
The movie adaption of “Looking For Alaska” is set to be released in 2010 and will be written and directed by “The O.C.” creator Josh Schwartz. The title of the movie is also rumoured to be “Famous Last Words.”
Green has also written “An Abundance of Katherine’s,” and “Paper Towns,” two books that also successfully mirror the humor and wit of “Looking For Alaska”. He is also currently writing the script for “An Abundance of Katherine’s.”
