A review by gothiclibrarian
Looking for Alaska by John Green

5.0

I didn’t know who John Green was until a couple weeks ago when I stumbled across the vlogbrothers videos. I thought that since I loved the videos, I would give one of his novels a shot. My local library had the audiobook of this title and before I was even halfway through, I went out and bought myself a copy, along with two other of his books.

The writing is magnificent. It’s smart, funny and I love the characters; I wish that they were real people. I loved that they were smart and nerdy, but unashamedly so. I haven’t read very many books dealing with the boarding school type system but the ones I have read have been pretty much amazing and Alaska doesn’t disappoint.

I loved that it was set at a school where you had to be smart just to attend. I also liked that though they were smart, they still broke the rules. They were also kind of the cool kids, even if others didn’t see them as so. Isn’t that how it always is at that age?

The main characters had these interesting little quirks. Miles memorizes the last lines of famous people, The Colonel memorizes countries and their capitals, and Alaska has hundreds of books in her room that she calls “her life’s library” because she’s only read about 1/3 of them. I think that will be my excuse for all the books I have.

It’s brilliantly written, at times hysterically funny and at times heartbreakingly sad. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes YA, or books in general. It is that great. I am so glad that I started with this book.