Looking for Alaska

By: John Green
Publisher: HarperCollins
Dates Read: August 15-23
Pages: 263
Source: Own it

Why did I read it?
Back in my bush years, one of my staff said this was her favourite book.  So when I found a used copy with a daisy on the front, I figured I should trust her and read it.  This was before I had ever read a John Green book and maybe should have known better.  (After finishing the book I talked to her about it and she said it has for sure changed.  Thank goodness.)

Looking for Alaska follows Miles aka. Pudge as he begins boarding school in Alabama.  Pudge knows famous people's last words which makes his roommate, the Colonel, decide he is worth being friends with.  Apparently everyone has to have a stupid nickname unless you already have a weird name: like Alaska.  Alaska is an attractive girl who lives just a few doors down from Pudge and the Colonel.  She has a room FILLED with books that she plans to spend the rest of her life reading.  

The book starts "before" and instead of chapters we are counting down the days to some unknown-to-us event.  I didn't care for the "before" portion of the book.  It was a lot of teenagers doing the worst of things people assume teenagers do with a lot of drinking, smoking, and pranks.  Pudge starts dating someone because he is in love with Alaska but she is dating someone else.  I think we're supposed to want them to get together but it just all seems a little to dysfunctional, even for teenagers.  All I can say is that this boarding school needs WAY more adult supervision and people should stop sending their kids here.  

The "after" is where the book is actually pretty good.  We are now counting the days up after the now known-to-us event.  We follow these teenagers as they struggle with grief, mourning, anger, guilt, and shame.  This is the half of the book teenagers need.  We need more real stories about these feelings so teenagers can have an understanding of tragedy and natural responses to it.  Unfortunately for us, we had to make it through the first half to get there (which I almost didn't). 

For whatever reason, John Green always feels like all his characters have to have some weird, out-of-the-ordinary like for something in order for them to be interesting.  Honestly, I am so sick of it but I still own one more book of his.  I will read it and then donate all four to get them off of my shelf.

Rating: 2.5/5 (half of this book was good, half of this book was not)

Recommendation: I don't know why I keep reading John Green's books and I don't know that you should either.  However, I've said it before and I'll say it again: the rest of the world seems to love him so proceed at your own risk.