Looking for Alaska - John Green

I first heard of this book after reading The Fault In Our Stars because I was so fascinated and drawn in by the writing, the characters, and pretty much everything else and I wanted to read something else by the author. I was not disappointed in the slightest with this one either.

Looking for Alaska follows the not-so-exciting life of ‘famous last words’ obsessed Miles Halter as he leaves his high school and heads off to Culver Creek Boarding School. You can bet, however, that once he gets there, his life finds some excitement in his new friends Chip “The Colonel” Martin and the oh-so-intriguing Alaska Young. These two show Miles a completely different way of traveling through the labyrinth and seeking the “Great Perhaps.”

One thing I like to do when I’m reading is keep post-it notes nearby to mark my favorite quotes, and with John Green, there is never a shortage of quotes that grab my attention and make me think, and I think that’s what I love the most about his books. They really make you think. The story is great, but what’s really exciting is that you get to discover things alongside the characters. This particular book has a lot of talk about religion, and more specifically an afterlife, but the best part about it is that it explores this idea through the eyes of more than one faith. I can’t share too many of my marked quotes without giving anything away, but this one really got me thinking:

“People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn’t bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn’t bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn’t even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn’t bear not to.”

-       Miles (Pudge) Halter (page 100)

I’ll leave you to ponder that one on your own.

You know how sometimes you reach the back cover and the book comes to a close, and you just sort of sit there with the book in your hands and let it all sink in? This was definitely one of those books. With ups and downs, intrigue, romance, pain, and everything in between, this book grabbed me from page one and I think that a lot of people can relate to the things that the characters in the story go through. John Green does it again with this one, and I cannot wait to read more of his work.

I hope you all have the chance to check this one out! Feel free to leave comments, thoughts, questions to discuss, etc. in the comments section below.

Happy Reading!