Review of Looking for Alaska by John Green

Title: Looking for Alaska

Author: John Green
Narrator: Jeff Woodman
Published by: Brillance Audio
Length: ca. 7 hr.
Source: Library
Format: Audio book
Rating: ★★★★★

Summary from Goodreads: Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words - and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps." Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

For a lot of people Looking for Alaska evokes a love hate relationship.  For me it's purely love.  There is something about John Green's writing (or maybe Jeff Woodman's narrating) that pulled me in from the very first minutes of the story.  Don't get me wrong it is not a happy, uplifting story, but it's raw and real.  I enjoyed everything about this story from the crazy characters to the heartfelt story line.  Are not we all looking for something that could possibly make our lives better or what's the next adventure to be bestowed?  

All of the characters in this novel are quirky and completely memorable.  I only wish that I could have been part of their lives a little longer.  Miles doesn't really have any friends so he decides to go to boarding school to look for something better to happen.  And it does on the first day when he meets his roommate Chip who is called The Colonel and the gorgeous but very moody Alaska.  They have many adventures throughout the year and while there are fun times and pranks, there is also heartbreak and pain.

I love the growth of Miles throughout the novel.  While I'm a little unsure of his complete and utter besmittenness with Alaska, I like where he finds himself at the end of the novel.  While I'm not much for swearing I didn't think that it took away from this novel like it does in others.  It could have been the audio or just that I was so enraptured in the story.  Jeff Woodman has the perfect tone for each of the characters the caught my attention from the minute Miles stepped foot at boarding school.  I immensely enjoyed his narration and I hope to hear him again.

While this wasn't the light book I was hoping for I still fell in love with it and I can't wait to read more of John Green's work.