Looking for the Great Perhaps

books:


	• Looking for Alaska John Green Puffin, 2006 - 256 pages average customer review:based on 84 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Looking for the Great Perhaps

I was a little surprised at this first novel by John Green. I read his second novel first, An Abundance of Katherines, and found it funny and pleasant. I didn't realize just how different and dark Looking For Alaska was going to be, or how much sexuality and drinking was in it. Maybe I am starting to forget what it was like to be a teenager, but I just feel like there was not a lot of this stuff going on in my circle. Or maybe I just was not paying attention. Or maybe it was just the feeling of shock at certain parts when I was listening to the audio book with my mother in the car. ... Maybe it's just me.

I liked what I thought was the general message of the book (although I am sure there is more than one message): Of being stuck in the labyrinth of suffering, trying to find a way out. Of how some people choose the quick way out, or some try to ignore they are in the labyrinth, or some keep surviving just knowing they will eventually find their way out whether they are ready or not. My only dislike was that, after the climax in the story, it lagged on for a bit. I wanted the characters to either move on or say the book was done.

The audio version (which, as I said above, is how i "read" this book) was read by Jeff Woodman. He did an excellent job of capturing the feel for the different characters; he had so many different voices to capture, and he did and then some! I definitely enjoyed listening to it.

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Swan's Way

Eighty-two days before: Someone on the Weber list recommended this book, and then I heard from another friend that it has a startling sex scene on pages 126-8, so I said to myself, why not, although YA fiction hasn't ever really entertained me (except for the novels of Lorena Mattingly Weber). Forty days before: I gave LOOKING FOR ALASKA a whirl. I didn't realize that "Alaska" was the name of the heroine; if I had, I would have left the book on the shelf. Last couple of weeks, in this year of Sarah Palin and hearing so much about the state of Alaska I remembered the book I had left unfinished and got it out again. Again I lived through the story of Pudge Halter, the nerdy narrator who makes a move from Florida to Alabama--I had to read that part over and over to understand what the significance of that move was--the author treats it like from the earth to the moon. All of a sudden in Alabama, at boarding school, the narrator gets two gorgeous girls to make out with him.

Dream on, Pudge! It just didn't seem realistic, nor did his habit of collecting the last words of famous people. I don't want to give away any spoilers here, but Alaska is too much of a free spirit to live for long, with her habit of burning the candle at both ends, and the ominous countdown - (three days before) - is leading to something bloody and strange. Like his characters, John Green revels in oddball names and quirky traits. As in American Pie, the sexy foreign student is used as a sort of Barbarella blow up toy with a comical accent. In some convincing way, the book is about learning how to avoid or transcend hate. The bullies who make Pudge's life a living nightmare at the beginning of the book are like futile nothings in the bigger picture of life that John Green produces. Kids love this kind of thing and so I must recommend this book heartily, even though I found his conception of "Alaska" annoyingly reminiscent of young Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury, and of Peyton Loftis in Styron's Lie Down in Darkness and I wish he had been able to take her out of the rich girl gone bad stereotype but no.

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Great Young teen book

Looking for Alaska is a great book for any age group. we all can relate to a girl that we fell in love with but something happened and we never ended up with them. the plot also is believable and nicely portrayed. the story telling is not as good as real Literature (Steinbeck,Hemingway,ext) but it is a young teen book so do not expect it to be.

made of awesome

i love john green and all of his books. this is one of the best books i have ever read . dftba

I just really liked it

I really enjoyed this book 1.) because it was funny, and 2) because the Miles character was more like my young self than any character I've ever read, and 3)I'm always interested in stories about how people 4) deal with grief, and 5)learn to accept their own fallibility.

Plus, it was funny (did I mention that? Because it was.) It didn't lose its sense of humor for the "After" section either, although the humor took a short break while the characters were saddest, and changed in tone to follow the tone of the story.

It was not a dark book. It was realistic, but full of hope. And funny.
The characters were juvenile (but did grow... realistically.)
It was still good to read as an adult (over 40.)

Including characters that smoked and drank and even had sex in a way I never did high school did nothing to keep me from being able to identify with them.

However, if you never felt like a reject or were bullied as a kid, you may not be able to identify.

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