Looking for Alaska by John Green

True confession:  I ruin things.  Usually nothing that important (though if you had queried my son the other day after I made him put a coat on before playing outside, you would have received a different point of view), but more like I am my own worst spoiler kind of ruin things.  I blurted out the twist in The Sixth Sense when I figured it out.  I watch cop shows and know who did it before we start a line-up.  I have a tendency to know how a book will turn out before I'm halfway through.  I try not to do this, because what's the fun in knowing it before it happens?  But I seem to have no control over it.  Please don't misunderstand.  I'm not saying I'm awesome or that I'm really smart or anything.  What I'm saying is: I ruin things.  That being said, I would like to make a disclaimer about this book.  So here goes.

Disclaimer:  I liked the book.  Really.  But I ruin things.

I've reviewed another book by John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, which I also liked.  But I ruined it for myself on a couple of different levels.  First and foremost, John Green's target audience is teen to young adult.  I am not a teen and sadly no longer a young adult. But as I read the book (in this case, both books) I could not put myself in the teen/young adult mind space.  If I had, I think I'd probably be writing John Green a fan letter right now rather than writing this review.  So that's my own issue, not Mr. Green's.  On another level.....I ruin things.  Both books were too easy to figure out.  Again, had I been a teen/young adult I would probably feel differently.  But I am old, so therefore I ruin.

In Looking for Alaska, we follow our narrator Miles to boarding school.  Miles asked his parents to be

Not the Alaska we're looking for.

sent to his father's old stomping grounds as part of his search for a connection to something  that he wasn't finding at his public school.  Miles goes seeking Rabelais' "Great Perhaps" and does indeed find friendship, challenges, and an irritating number of pranks (sorry, as a teacher I can not condone half of the behavior in the book though that's not really my issue).  Miles becomes friends with his roommate Chip in short order as Chip introduces Miles to life at Culver Creek.  It seems there is a division between the boarders and the commuters, with the implication being that the boarders are of the "have not" variety while the commuters are the obnoxious and entitled "haves."  Nothing new there.  Through Chip, or the Colonel, Miles, or Pudge (also an annoying number of nicknames), becomes friends with Alaska.  Alaska is not a nickname.  And she immediately becomes the desire of young Pudge.  Nothing new here either.

I feel like this book and this movie
are second cousins.

Other things happen:  classes are attended, pranks are planned and pulled, alcohol and cigarettes get a lot of play.  However we all know the story really revolves around Pudge and Alaska; after all, he's the narrator and she's the title of the book.  Alaska has a boyfriend.  Pudge tries to date another girl.  Alaska is not exactly mentally stable.  Alaska, the Colonel, and Pudge must play the ultimate prank on the commuters AND the Eagle (the resident teacher/dorm monitor).  And so on and so forth.  I won't tell you the rest because I don't like to ruin things for other people, but I'm guessing you can probably take it from there.  I will say it's not the happy ending that "The Breakfast Club" is, but I bet you can navigate the issues that do come up.  

So to sum up:  I liked the book.  I thought it was too easy to figure out.  That might be because I'm old and have a preternatural way of ruining all things.  I also want to say to all teenagers everywhere that though you feel your pranks are epic and will never be outdone......they already have been.  So knock it off.  Anyway, it's a good book for the right person.  I am not that person.