A review by mandycantsleep
Looking for Alaska by John Green

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I remember reading this in middle school and absolutely loving it. So I decided to reread it now, as a 22-year-old, and I cannot say it resulted in the same outcome. I feel like a lot of the book was ... completely unnecessary.
The second half of the book felt super drawn out, I think it could have been wrapped up in just a few chapters. I was listening to the audiobook, so it ended up being 3.5 hours of the second half. Honestly, I started to lose interest after an hour in.
It was fairly obvious to me why Alaska was going out (maybe it was my memory from 10 years ago? Or more likely, just the fact that she talked about her worst day prior (her mom's death), and the date she drove off was around the same time in January.) I was just getting really annoyed at the characters, I felt like screaming through my screen, "SHE WAS GOING TO SEE HER MOM! OBVIOUSLY!" So when they finally figured it out, it wasn't some big conclusion for me.
I also think maybe it was just a bit young for me. While I was definitely too young to be reading this in middle school, I think maybe high school is the best demographic for this book. Overall, it's a really intense story and had me hooked in the first half, but lost me in the second.
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