John Green's The Fault in Our Stars was what won me over. He was different, fresh and knew how to put a new spin on books based on teenage life without landing them straight in the cliché category. His debut novel, Looking For Alaska, is a showcase to the raw talent John Green has, the kind of talent that can make you close the crisp last page of a novel and come out as a different person.
Looking For Alaska cannot be merely written off as a typical boy-meets-girl love story, because it isn't. It's more of a tale of how love isn't as translucent as it seems.
Miles Halter or "Pudge" as he is referred to throughout the book, is the protagonist, and the book starts with Miles leaving Florida to attend a school in Alabama. He's introduced by his roommates to beautiful, mysterious and emotionally confused Alaska Young, and the story progresses, mostly centered around Miles' life at Culver Creek and his growing attachment to Alaska. There are also essential parts of teenage life thrown in casually and skillfully to the story, such as pranks, bets and disastrous parties.
The beauty of the book is that it doesn't hide anything. It showcases what young love and growing up really are in a brutal and honest light. How the characters communicate, their relationships with each other, their pasts and the pleasure that comes with being a bad kid shine through the pages. Why I prefer John Green's debut novel to his other ones is because he's made no effort to make it an appropriate and proper book. You might not weep buckets like most people did at the end of The Fault in Our Stars, but you'll get attached to Miles and Alaska, just as they do to each other.
Want to tell the world about a book you've read? Join the site and send us your review!
