Looking for Alaska

by John Green

[Rach Wood]

This story isn't about a trip to Alaska, as the title might suggest, is about a boy who will seek his Great Perhaps and will find it in a hard and yet wonderful way.

Miles Halter, nicknamed Pudge by his roommate, Chip "the Colonel" Martin, arrives in Culver Creek Boarding School and then the journey begins. First, he's a lonely skinny boy from Florida who loves famous last words. Second, he gets in the Colonel's inner circle, composed by Takumi, a Japanese boy who loves rap, and Alaska Young, a clever, sexy and badly screwed-up girl. As they're all teens, there are bad vices (like drinking and smoking), unrequited love, sexual curiosity, friendship, family problems, a lot of pranks and so go on. Besides, as they're also in school, they've some classes and I really enjoyed the Old Man ones, 'cause it made me think about lots of stuff related to philosophical questions.

Regarding characters, I thought Pudge was really adorkable, but I just understood his love for Alaska after the accident. Alaska Young was a pain in the ass, so fucking bipolar! She's a feminist, but she just yells about it, making nothing really, and then she's mean to Pudge and speaks nonstop about her boyfriend, Jack, who doesn't even appear on the sad part of the story, as if it meant nothing to him, which is really dumb, though. Anyway, the Colonel was cool, 'cause he's a good friend and a wonderful son. His love for his mum touched me and I really liked the Best Day story he told in the game "Best Day, Worst day", which was one of my favourite parts of the book, btw. Takumi and Lara, who was Pudge's first girlfriend (even if he was deeply madly in love with Alaska), were minor characters, so I have little to say about them, only that the blow job scene with Lara was unnecessary, but it didn't bother me 'cause it was kind of fun when Pudge asked Alaska to teach them how to properly do it.

The book won me over in the After part, because of the mystery surrounding the accident and I also really liked that the Colonel didn't give up on Alaska and asked for Pudge's help to find answers. The After part was about suffering, loss, grief, coping and search the way to get out of the labyrinth or to bear it. I really cried, like a hungry baby, 'cause it was so emotional. They sought to understand why Alaska left them and they also sought the meaning of their own lives.

This isn't about youth and teen drama, it's an inspiring book about life and death, about how people's life touches our own life and changes our own ways to see the others and the world, about overcome the bad things and about the choices we must make. It's about discovery.