Book Review: Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska by John Green

SUMMARY: Miles "Pudge" Halter is abandoning his safe, boring life. Fascinated by the last words of famous people, Pudge leaves for boarding school to seek what a dying Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps." Pudge becomes encircled by friends whose lives are everything but safe and boring. Their nucleus is razor-sharp, sexy, and self-destructive Alaska, who has perfected the arts of pranking and evading school rules. Pudge falls impossibly in love. When tragedy strikes the close-knit group, it is only in coming face-to-face with death that Pudge discovers the value of living and loving unconditionally. (from the inside flap)

OPINION: This edgy high school book won the Printz Award this year and caused quite a stir among adults, but I never got around to reading it until now. Even though the book was depressingly realistic at times, it drew me in to the boarding school atmosphere. Pudge's experiences with all-night bull sessions, trips to the smoking hole, and endless pranks reminded me of a glorified trip to sleep-away camp. The final prank in the book had me laughing out loud! Be warned, however, that this story is a hard one to read. Depression, substance abuse, and self-destructive behaviors often drive the action. The varied elements of this story combine to form a tone that embodies teenage vitality at the same time it creates a sense of foreboding. If you like your realistic fiction to be seriously realistic (but not preachy), this one's for you.