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Review: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Looking for Alaska by John Green
Published by HarperCollins books
Source: Review Copy


Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words - and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps." Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A stunning debut, it marks John Green's arrival as an important new voice in contemporary fiction.


***
John Green is one of those authors I have heard loads about but I have to say I need to read more of his work to fully understand the hype.

Looking for Alaska was a nice enough book. I liked the characters in it and I enjoyed how they related with one another. There are some brilliantly funny bits within it involving the pranks the characters got up to.

What I wasn't so keen on was that the first half of the book is clearly building up to a major event (which is obvious from the way the chapters are divided) but the major event is given away on the blurb of the book which I thought spoilt the book for me. I also felt there could have been more that actually happened in the story itself. I found myself wondering when something would happen next.

All in all an interesting books which is worth a read for the quirky characters if nothing else but do not read the back before reading.


Thank you HarperCollins for the review copy

Comments

Anonymous said…
I haven't read any of John Green's books yet but I do have Paper Towns on my bookshelf. From the reviews I've read, I don't think this is his best novel though so maybe try one of his others? I'm looking forward to getting to Paper Towns soon.
serendipity_viv said…
I read this last year and loved it.
Caroline said…
Oooh thanks for the tip! Won't read the back cover!
I just picked this up in tesco - darn the BOGOF :D Looking forwrd to reading it. Great review
What an absolute shame that the event was spoilt for you :( I really love John Green something fierce. I hope you pick up his other books!
BookGeek said…
I actually haven't heard of John Green. Now I feel out of the loop! This book is intriguing to me for two things: his bravery in going somewhere and the name Alaska.
Lauren said…
I love this book! Really great review, and I think what you've said about the blurb spoiler is really interesting. When I read the book, I knew what the major event was and yet I didn't think about the story being 'spoiled' - I just enjoyed the getting there. Then I bought it for a friend's birthday and either his edition didn't give anything away in the blurb or he didn't read it... because when we talked about the book, it was obvious his reading experience was totallly different from mine. We both loved it though.