Looking for Alaska by John Green

Miles is off to boarding school in search of his “Great Perhaps.”  Once there he meets Alaska Young – beautiful, smart, fun-loving and moody – and of course falls for her.  Then something really bad happens and Miles must find a way to deal with it.

The book is divided into Before and After so you kind of know right from the beginning that something bad is going to happen.  I think I’ll start with what I didn’t like about this book so I can finish off on a positive note.  I have just recently read Paper Towns by the same author and while I did like Looking for Alaska better, I felt like the characters, especially the female leads, were very similar – too similar.  I also have another of Green’s books sitting in my tbr pile and it makes me wonder if the characters in it will also be the same.  I loved the characters in Paper Towns but finding them so similar in this book worries me that Green can only write one type of character.  (We’ll see how the third book works out.)

Okay, now for the good.  John Green can really write.  I love the flow in his stories.  I love the way he develops his characters and I love the wit he includes in his books.  I found myself laughing out loud at the thoughts and words of his characters.  I also loved the characters.  I found Alaska to be a bit annoying sometimes but she was real.  The story was also real.  That’s why I liked this one better than Paper Towns.  It was much more realistic.  (I, myself, have never gone to boarding school so maybe it actually isn’t all that realistic, but it felt honest to me.)

All in all, it was a good book, definitely worthwhile reading.  (As if you need me to tell you that, see that gold sticker on the cover?  It won the Printz award.)