Looking For Alaska - Book Review (contains spoilers)

July 30, 2014




I read this book a few weeks ago and it was pleasant, not “WOW THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING!” but just simply pleasant. Don’t get me wrong, I love John Green but this book was a little lacking for me; the woman in the shop (Waterstones if you’re wondering) told me that it was a love story and, because I’m a sucker for romantic stories and I loved TFIOS, I bought it.
Now, I don’t know if the woman had read the book because to me, this book was more about a schoolboy crush and planning pranks than it was love. To me, I felt that the character Pudge had a simple schoolboy crush oh Alaska, which was only made worse by the knowledge that she had a boyfriend, the concept of desiring most what you can’t have. And, if I’m totally honest, I didn’t really like Alaska that much. She was all over, and I know that Green created her as sort of an enigma, but seriously, some of the things she did I would never imagine a normal person doing in their life! For example, she speaks in riddles and metaphors (again with the bloody metaphors!) and her emotions are extreme, one minute she is happy and at the turn of a page, she is sobbing violently and when she died, I wasn’t sad. I just felt that Green couldn’t think of any more random things for Alaska to do so he killed her off to make it easier for him. Yet, even in death she still managed to annoy me because there was no clear reason for her death and the latter half of the book was spent trying to figure out WHY she died which was totally pointless and annoying.


I would give this book a 4/10 because I expected amazing things from the author of TFIOS which made me blubber like a baby but when I read Looking For Alaska I felt let down and slightly disappointed. Sorry to any John Green fans out there…



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