| | Looking for Alaska |  | Author: John Green
Creator: Jeff Woodman
Publisher: Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $20.46
You Save: $9.49 (32%)
New (8) from $20.46
Avg. Customer Rating:  91 reviews
Sales Rank: 2281620
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 6
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.9 x 5.1 x 1.5
ASIN: B00127SJ9E
Publication Date: September 21, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 I Wish I Liked Alaska October 19, 2008
I liked this book, I really liked this book, even. Part of its allure for me was its semi-autobigraphical nature, and the fact that as a local, the transparency of its setting was amusing. I really enjoyed the narrator, a great deal. But am not sure that I love this book. I found Alaska obnoxious. I know that she wasn't perfect, but I didn't like her as much as the other characters. And I felt like I ought to have. Also, it's been a while since I've been up on the YA scene, I admit. However, the content of this book is probably for high school and above, when one could be reading novels from the broader collection of all of literature, and not just YA. But maybe I am just missing the boat on that one.
 Struggle October 13, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This was one of those books that I was tempted to stop reading in the middle. I am glad I finished it, but I am not sure if the message at the end of the book was worth getting through the all the mud at the beginning. I would not want my teenage children reading this book.
 made of awesome October 10, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
i love john green and all of his books. this is one of the best books i have ever read . dftba
Swan's Way October 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Eighty-two days before: Someone on the Weber list recommended this book, and then I heard from another friend that it has a startling sex scene on pages 126-8, so I said to myself, why not, although YA fiction hasn't ever really entertained me (except for the novels of Lorena Mattingly Weber). Forty days before: I gave LOOKING FOR ALASKA a whirl. I didn't realize that "Alaska" was the name of the heroine; if I had, I would have left the book on the shelf. Last couple of weeks, in this year of Sarah Palin and hearing so much about the state of Alaska I remembered the book I had left unfinished and got it out again. Again I lived through the story of Pudge Halter, the nerdy narrator who makes a move from Florida to Alabama--I had to read that part over and over to understand what the significance of that move was--the author treats it like from the earth to the moon. All of a sudden in Alabama, at boarding school, the narrator gets two gorgeous girls to make out with him.
Dream on, Pudge! It just didn't seem realistic, nor did his habit of collecting the last words of famous people. I don't want to give away any spoilers here, but Alaska is too much of a free spirit to live for long, with her habit of burning the candle at both ends, and the ominous countdown - (three days before) - is leading to something bloody and strange. Like his characters, John Green revels in oddball names and quirky traits. As in American Pie, the sexy foreign student is used as a sort of Barbarella blow up toy with a comical accent. In some convincing way, the book is about learning how to avoid or transcend hate. The bullies who make Pudge's life a living nightmare at the beginning of the book are like futile nothings in the bigger picture of life that John Green produces. Kids love this kind of thing and so I must recommend this book heartily, even though I found his conception of "Alaska" annoyingly reminiscent of young Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury, and of Peyton Loftis in Styron's Lie Down in Darkness and I wish he had been able to take her out of the rich girl gone bad stereotype but no.
I just really liked it September 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really enjoyed this book 1.) because it was funny, and 2) because the Miles character was more like my young self than any character I've ever read, and 3)I'm always interested in stories about how people 4) deal with grief, and 5)learn to accept their own fallibility.
Plus, it was funny (did I mention that? Because it was.) It didn't lose its sense of humor for the "After" section either, although the humor took a short break while the characters were saddest, and changed in tone to follow the tone of the story.
It was not a dark book. It was realistic, but full of hope. And funny.
The characters were juvenile (but did grow... realistically.)
It was still good to read as an adult (over 40.)
Including characters that smoked and drank and even had sex in a way I never did high school did nothing to keep me from being able to identify with them.
However, if you never felt like a reject or were bullied as a kid, you may not be able to identify.
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