looking for alaska

“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”

I have a John Green problem.

Actually, badkittyuno and I have a John Green problem. Green is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors  considering I hadn’t heard of him prior to this year. I think I liked Alaska as much as I did because I read it after the distinctly disappointing An Abundance of Katherine’s.

Miles is leaving home for boarding school to escape the bullies and his lack of friends. At Culver Creek his roommate, the Colonel (another excellent supporting cast member written by Green), introduces him to cigarettes, vodka and Alaska. Looking for Alaska follows a similar formula to Green’s previous books: smart, socially awkward boy meets an MPDG. The first half of the book has a countdown to the days before an event, and the second half counts days following “the event.” This is a sad book, not as sad as The Fault in Our Stars, but there is some heartbreak woven in between the high school pranks.

“Sometimes I don’t get you,’ I said.
She didn’t even glance at me. She just smiled toward the television and said, ‘You never get me. That’s the whole point.”

I recommend this as an introduction to Green- if you read The Fault in our Stars first you will have infinitely high expectations for the rest of his works and may not appreciate his other novels. I wish I had learned of Green earlier, he write incredibly intelligent YA.