The Little Things
February 25, 2015

Looking For Alaska- sounds intriguing,  especially because we all know where Alaska is located- right? That’s what I thought when I sat down to read John Green’s book Looking For Alaska. I didn’t have many expectations when I sat down to read the book (I didn’t even know what it was about), but I was immediately excited because I loved John Green’s writing in The Fault In Our Stars. 

Looking For Alaska Review

The story is about Miles, a teenager who is a new student at a boarding school in Alabama. He’s on a journey to seek a great perhaps, and this is a theme that plays out throughout the novel. The book follows Miles and his group of friends throughout their year at school as they tackle various problems related to living life not only as a teenager, but also in the setting of the boarding school. As in The Fault In Our Stars, I think that Green is able to put deeply into words the experiences of teenagers, but uses themes that we as adults also struggle with today. Questions of life after death, the purpose of life, and confronting suffering are woven throughout the book, with an edge of mystery and suspense as well. Overall, I really enjoyed the book!

The inside covers of the book are covered with the following two phrases (one is in the front and one is in the back). These are questions and themes found throughout the book:

Looking For Alaska Review

“I go to seek a great perhaps” and “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!”.

The book I own has a reader’s guide section at the end, and this is a quote by Green in this section as he is describing the book:

There will be questions around deaths and friendships and romances and religion and mysteries of every variety that never get solved to your satisfaction. The interesting question to me is “Can you go on in the face of that uncertainty? How can we go on in a world where suffering is distributed so unequally and so capriciously? Can you live with integrity and hope even with these unanswered questions? Finding a way to live with that ambiguity matters” (p. 9 in the Reader’s Guide in Looking For Alaska). 

I hope that quote not only provides some reflection for you, but also piques your interest in reading Looking For Alaska!

Looking for other great books to read? Here are a few other suggestions:

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7 responses to “Looking For Alaska”

  1. mindy @ just a one girl revolution. says:
    February 25, 2015 at 8:36 am

    Yay, glad you enjoyed this one! 🙂

  2. Emilie says:
    February 25, 2015 at 10:01 am

    This looks like a great book! I liked TFIOS but I didn’t love it (I think because I read it without the understanding that it was a YA novel). I want to eventually re-read it with the right mindset to see if my opinion changes.

    • littlethingscaroline@gmail.com says:
      February 25, 2015 at 11:32 am

      It’s definitely worth a second read. Looking For Alaska (along with Paper Towns, which I also just finished) are both about high school students, so go in with that mindset. I loved them both though!

  3. Abby @ BackAtSquareZero says:
    February 25, 2015 at 8:25 pm

    I loved The Fault in Our Stars… may need to check this one out.

    • littlethingscaroline@gmail.com says:
      February 25, 2015 at 8:32 pm

      It definitely had a similar feel to it, although I think “The Fault” will remain my favorite book by him. Are you on goodreads?

  4. The Little Things says:
    March 24, 2015 at 3:05 am

    […] who don’t know! Paper Towns is a book by John Green, who wrote The Fault In Our Stars and Looking For Alaska, so I assumed that I would like […]