“I never liked writing concluding paragraphs to papers - where you repeat what you've already said with phrases like 'In summation', and 'To conclude'.” – Looking For Alaska. To write a summary and review on this book with only 800 words would be unfair, it’s not enough. So, here goes nothing. This is by far one the best books I’ve ever read. Sadness, guilt, anger, mischief, trust, love, John Green penned these in a way I’ve never encountered in any other books. I read this book in one siting; it’s haunting and compelling in the simplest of ways. This is a story of one boy’s journey to seek a Great Perhaps, a story about friendship unlike any told before, a story full of quiet incidents with larger than life lessons. This is not a love story; this is the story about love. After reading and re-reading it again and again, I decided that the Great Perhaps is not a destination, but a journey instead. And I think Pudge found it within himself. “We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken.”- Pudge. I've messed up everything I could possibly have messed up. For the longest time I was wallowed in self-pity it made me stop doing things for everyone else and it made me realized that this is my life, and one day nobody else is going to care so I need to do things for me. I think I learned this because it showed me how short life really is and that I can take control of things and make my life what I want it to be. This book deals with teens in a realistic and important way. The sprinkling of famous last words and philosophies completes the plot with precise dosage, rather than distract. And the characters, flawed as it is are still very human, well-developed and their actions come across as genuine. This book connects itself so much to me that at one point, I could basically picture myself as Miles ‘Pudge’ Halter. …show more content…
I have so much in common with him, that I’m able to read the book from my point of view. When he says things like “I hated sports. I hated sports, and I hated people who played them, and I hated people who watched them, and I hated people who didn't hate people who watched or played them.” and “I hated talking, and I hated listening to everyone else stumble on their words and try to phrase things in the vaguest possible way so they wouldn’t sound dumb.” I laughed so loud that my mom thought I was on drugs. There were lumps inside my throat when I read the last page of the book. Because I’d like to believe Alaska isn’t dead. I’d like to picture her smoking or drinking in the barn, sorting out her priorities. I’d like to picture her driving home, and stopping at her boyfriend’s house to tell him it’s over. I know she isn’t fully committed to her boyfriend. If she loved her boyfriends, she wouldn’t have felt the need to say it to Pudge. I’d like to see her at home, reading a book alone in her room and most of all, I want to see her happily in love with Pudge. I want to picture her being alive. ”Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.” – Pudge.