Looking for Alaska by John Green

It's not very often that I'll judge a book by its cover, but that is exactly what I did when I started reading Looking For Alaska by John Green. One of my good friend's recommended the book, but I can honestly say I was not interested whatsoever, however, an epiphany struck me when I spotted the book's artistic cover on paperback turnstile in the high school library. I started reading it  with only a couple of weeks of school left and I wanted to finish it before my long summer hiatus. Fortunately, the library so kindly loaned me the book over the summer, allowing me to soak up each individual word on every page of the book. 

Miles is fifteen years old, undeniably intelligent and has a strange fascination with famous last words. However, despite his gifted intelligence, Miles is in search of deeper meaning in life, which translates to going to a boarding school in Florida. He eventually finds a goal in life which is inspired by Francois Rabelais's last words, "I go to seek a great perhaps," and wants to discover his own "great perhaps" before he dies. However, his journey is blockaded by his love interest in a young girl named Alaska Young, who causes Miles to embrace the wild side of life and falls into smoking, drinking and a prank war which ends badly. However, while deeper meaning may be hard to notice in this book, readers must challenge themselves to dig for deeper meaning - believe it definitely there. 

Overall, after I complete all of the books pages, I had to read more by John Green. His writing style was so eloquent and straight to the point that reading it was nothing short of a cake walk, while still managing to be quite humorous and interesting. The character depth is also very well constructed, allowing for readers to sympathize with all the events that unfold before their eyes. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in humorous anecdotes, dramatic circumstances and deep meaning all wrapped up in one little paperback. (Corbin - senior)