“Looking for Alaska,” is one of the books that you read the back blurb and decide it’s just a typical teenage novel. Luckily, I read ahead to find out that it’s not just your average teenage story. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read and it had me crying a few times throughout the book.
The book starts out with a teenage boy, Miles, at his going away party before he leaves to go to boarding school. He realizes when he gets there that his room isn’t air conditioned and is extremely uncomfortable and hot. It was then that he realized that he was going to go through a lot of bad times while at school. His roommate, known as the “Colonel” starts to create a friendship between them. Throughout the story, Miles picks up a new nickname, “Pudge,” and meets the Colonel’s friends, Takumi, Lara, and Alaska. Pudge knew from the start that he would like Alaska because to him, Alaska was the prettiest girl he has ever met. Even though Lara begins to fall for Pudge, she doesn’t realize that Pudge isn’t going anywhere with anyone unless Alaska comes along. When something tragic happens toward the end, Pudge doesn’t know how he could make his last part of high school worth it.
The author chose to write this book in the sort of mysterious and eerie way, yet tried to throw in some romance. He captures your attention at the very beginning so it tends to bring you towards reading the entire thing. In the end, if you don’t have tears in your eyes, you just may be heartless.
In my opinion, I believe this is one of the best books I’ve ever read, because any book that can get a person crying is extremely fantastic. If anything, I wish there could have been a couple more books to make a series.
If you enjoy easy reads, but good books, this is definitely the one to choose because even throughout the book, everything is still exciting and suspenseful.