“I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane.”
Like Caitlin_G mentioned in her review of An Abundance of Katherines, I have unnaturally high expectations of John Green due to reading The Fault in Our Stars before any of his other books. That book was incredible–one of the best young adult novels I’ve ever read. Looking For Alaska was definitely a good, well written novel, but nothing will ever beat The Fault in Our Stars in my mind, so it fell slightly short of my expectations.
But Looking For Alaska was still worth the read. The main character, Miles “Pudge” (because he’s so scrawny) Halter goes to a boarding school when he can’t escape the bullies at his current school. He’s a quiet, introspective kid who obsesses over biographies; specifically, he memorizes the last words of famous people.
Pudge comes out of his shell a bit at his new school, when he meets his loud-mouthed roommate (the Colonel, who I loved) and of course, a girl. Named Alaska. She’s like a moody, rule breaking Zoey Deschanel, a manic depressive pixie dream girl. But he falls head over heels in love with her.
The story itself is better than I’m making it sound. As we learn more about Alaska, she becomes a much more sympathetic and multi-layered character. As does the Colonel, who is much more than the big mouth he comes off as at first.
It’s a good, solid young adult novel with some funny bits, some sad bits and genuine growth in its characters. It’s just not The Fault in Our Stars, but I guess I can’t hold everything I read against that book.
