Looking for Alaska  
by John Green

Review by 
Emma Erwin

 I highly recommend the novel Looking for Alaska by John Green. The novel is about a teenage boy named Miles who transfers to a boarding school looking for something more. Miles' hobby is quite unusual; he is obsessed with learning the last words of famous people. The words that fascinate him the most deal with something called "The Great Perhaps" (whatever that is), and these words guide him throughout the book as he goes through the trials of growing up. 

  The friends that Miles, or "Pudge," makes at school provide comic relief, but also a genuine sense of what real friendship is. His relationships, especially with an interesting girl named Alaska, are never perfect, but this is what makes the novel so intriguing. The characters make mistakes and have to deal with the fallout, and so the novel is relatable, even if the specific situations are not. Green writes with passion, and creates one of my favorite characters of all time, Alaska, through dynamic dialogue and description.

   This was definitely a novel that I sped through reading, but did not fully understand while I was reading it, or even immediately after finishing it. Only now, upon further reflection, several months after reading Looking for Alaska do I really understand the themes and the characters. This is a novel that I would read again, and I think that many young adults, male or female, would enjoy the universality of this story and of the characters. I give it an A. 

Editor's note: If you liked Looking for Alaska, check out John Green's latest, The Fault in Our Stars, in the PVI Media Center.