The Book Addict Reviews: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Genre: Young Adult, Social Situations, Friendship, Contemporary Fiction
Order Online: Amazon.com
Author Info: Goodreads | Website
Rating: 4 stars
Got this book as a gift from my buddy, Jen. 

In A Nutshell:
I almost do not know what to say about this book.  I laughed, I cried, and I shook my head in dismay, but more than anything I was moved.  I could not put this book down and now that I am done all I can say is that I want more John Green! 

Review:
Pudge left his safe and boring life in Florida to find his "great perhaps" at a boarding school in Alabama.  And he finds his great perhaps in Alaska Young, a classmate who loves to plan elaborate pranks, drink too much, and smoke to die.  She shakes up his life in so many ways--but will the effect last?  In the end that question becomes one of the hardest for Pudge to answer--and for Pudge to accept.

I have heard so many great things about John Green, but I really did not know what to expect.  Looking for Alaska left me speechless for the last half of the book.  I laughed, I cried, I shook my head in dismay, but more than anything I was moved.  His characters almost instantly mattered to me--they grabbed my heart and my conscience and did not let go.  I could not put the book down--and even now that I have finished it I want to read it again (and that is saying something because I am not a big re-reader).

I do have to note however that the teens in this book drink and smoke A LOT.  I have read a lot of YA and normally I can take drinking or smoking with a grain of salt.  It does not really phase me--but it was an almost constant theme in this story.  It was hard to just look beyond it.  However, it did not ruin the book for me but I did begin to wonder if lots of things in the book would have been different had the teens not smoked or even more importantly drank nearly so much. 

Recommendations:
I cannot wait to read more of John Green's writing--and my next selection is based primarily on what I have on hand at the moment:

TBR Intervention (7)

Last Week

I can say with absolute confidence that I succeeded in the TBR Intervention this week!  I am also super excited about my giveaway from the previous weeks TBR Intervention!

 

I finished Monster by Walter Dean Myers this week.  I am so impressed with this book--and I can definitely understand why he was named The National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.  My review is coming soon!


I finished Looking for Alaska by John Green.  I am pretty sure that I have a new (to-me) author to add to my list of favorite authors.  This book surprised me in so many ways.  My review is coming soon!


I am still working on this one, but I am feeling much more drawn into the book now.  I struggled with the beginning of the book--but now that I am in the last hundred tracks I cannot put it down.  I can see why so many people love it.  As soon as I finish the book, I want to re-watch the movie because I really feel like I will gain so much more insight into the movie after having finished the book!

This Week

Summary (from inside flap):
Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn't believe in fashion...she believes in costumes.  The more expressive the outfit--more sparkly, more fun, more wild--the better.  But even though Lola's style is outrageous, she's a devoted daughter and friend with some big plans for the future.  And everything is pretty perfect (right down to her hot rocker boyfriend) until the dreaded Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket, return to the neighborhood.

When Cricket--a gifted inventor--steps out from his twin sister's shadow and back into Lola's life, she must finally reconcile a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door.

I loved Anna and the French Kiss and I am so sorry that I have waited so long to read this one!  And then I found out that Anna and St. Clair are back!  That's enough to make me love this one!

Despite my pledge to shrink my TBR pile--I attended YAllapalooza hosted by one of my favorite independent bookstores, Changing Hands!  Of course I had to buy books!  So I must get them read and off my pile!


Summary (from inside flap): 
Evie finally has the normal life she's always longed for.  But she's shocked to discover that being ordinary can be...kind of boring.  Just when Evie starts to long for her days at the International Paranormal Containment Agency, she's given a chance to work for them again.  Desperate for a break from all the normalcy, she agrees.

But as one disastorous mission leads to another, Evie starts to wonder if she made the right choice.  And when Evie's faerie ex-boyfriend Reth appears with devastating revelations about her past, she discovers there's a battle brewing between the faerie courts that could throw the whole supernatural world into chaos.  The prize in question?  Evie herself.

So much for normal.

I loved the first book in this series.  I have been putting off the second in the series--and then I saw the author would be at YAllapalooza and I could not resist!

I am determined to finish my audiobook this week--and start my next audiobook this week!

Summary (from Amazon):
The New York Times bestselling author of the Wake trilogy makes her middle-grade dystopian fantasy debut!

When Alex finds out he is Unwanted, he expects to die. That is the way of the people of Quill: Each year all the thirteen-year-olds are labeled as Wanted, Necessary, or Unwanted. Wanteds get more schooling and train to join the Quillitary. Necessaries keep the farms running. Unwanteds are set for elimination.

It’s hard for Alex to leave behind his twin, Aaron, a Wanted, but he makes peace with his fate—until he discovers that instead of a “death farm,” what awaits him is a magical place called ArtimÉ. There, Alex and his fellow Unwanteds are encouraged to cultivate their creative abilities and use them magically. Everything Alex has ever known changes before his eyes, and it’s a wondrous transformation.

But it’s a rare, unique occurrence for twins to be divided between Wanted and Unwanted, and as Alex and Aaron’s bond stretches across their separation, a threat arises for the survival of ArtimÉ that will pit brother against brother in an ultimate, magical battle.

What book are you most excited to read this week?

TBR Intervention (6)

I am declaring this week's TBR a success--at least a partial success.

Last Week

I finished Crime Fiction for Beginners--and loved it.  You can find my review today and I will have a guest post by the author tomorrow! 


I finished Under the Never Sky--it may be my favorite book of 2012.  My review will be out on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 and includes a giveaway of my signed hardback copy.  How's that for shrinking my pile?


I am almost to the halfway point with this one--and I am satisfied with that.  I will however be listening to a shorter book next time.  I think I need a little of a break before I tackle The Two Towers.


I am about halfway through this book--so far I love it and I cannot wait to read more of John Green's books.  I am so glad my buddy, Jen, shared this one with me.

Next Week

I will finish Looking for Alaska and continue working on The Fellowship of the Ring, but my new book addition will be:

After I read this article, I decided I had to read a book by the new National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Walter Dean Myers.

Summary (from inside flap of book cover):
Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie.  Maybe I can make my own movie.  The film will be the story of my life.  No, not my life, but of this experience.  I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me.

Monster.

FADE IN: INTERIOR COURT.  A guard sits at a desk behind STEVE.  KATHY O'BRIEN, STEVE's lawyer, is all business as she talks to STEVE.

O'BRIEN: Let me make sure you understand what's going on.  Both you and this King character are on trial for felony murder.  Felony murder is as serious as it gets...When you're in court, you sit there and pay attention.  You let the jury know that you think the case is as serious as they do...

STEVE: You think we're going to win?

O'BRIEN (seriously): It probably depends on what you mean by "win." 

My friend and I are planning to read this book together and then talk about it--do a book discussion as a blog post.  So look for that to come out soon. 


What do you plan to read this week?

TBR Intervention (5): Better Late than Never Right?

First I have to admit that I was a big fail on the TBR Intervention this week.  It will almost look like I did not read anything this week--but I did!  I just did not finish any of it.  :(

Last Week

I am over halfway through this book--and so far I am intrigued and still in the dark as to "who-dun-it."

I am about halfway through this book--and I feel as though John Green is going to quickly become a favorite author of mine!

Not even close to halfway done with this one--but I expected that.  It is a long audiobook.  But I do love it!  And I am having a lot better time listening to this one as an audiobook than I have had in the past trying to read it.

Next Week

I am going to finish at least some (if not all) of the books from last week, but I do have to add one that I started last night after attending the Dark Days of Supernatural tour stop.  I have to finish:

 

Summary:

Since she’d been on the outside, she’d survived an Aether storm, she’d had a knife held to her throat, and she’d seen men murdered. This was worse.

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland—known as The Death Shop—are slim. If the cannibals don’t get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She’s been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He’s wild—a savage—and her only hope of staying alive.

A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile—everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria’s help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.

In her enthralling debut, Veronica Rossi sends readers on an unforgettable adventure set in a world brimming with harshness and beauty.

What do you plan to read this week?

TBR Intervention (4)

Last Week's Intervention

I finished both of these books from my goals last week:



My review for The Truth About Forever is already up and the review for Touch of Power will be up next week!

I am halfway done with Crank by Ellen Hopkins.  I may have it done by the end of the day (which would technically mean I am 100% successful on this week's intervention).  But even if it takes me until tomorrow I am happy with the results of this week's intervention.

This Week's Intervention

I had this book listed on a previous TRB intervention but due to some technical difficulties I was not able to finish it. This week I will finish it!


Summary:
The murder investigation Detective Inspector Harriet Ware is heading takes her into an unsuspected world where publishers wearily fend off a spate of unwanted manuscripts. Her suspects include would-be authors who live as much in the plots they are weaving as in the mundane world they actually inhabit. ‘Crime Fiction for Beginners’ is five novels in one with an unexpected twist at the end.

My buddy, Jen, sent me the following book--which I am so excited about because I have heard so many great things about John Green.

Summary:
Before.  Miles "Pudge" Halter is done with his safe life at home.  His whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (Francois Rabelais, poet) even more.  HE heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe.  Because down the hall is Alaska Young.  The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself.  She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After.  Nothing is ever the same.

And of course I have to work at least one audiobook--but the one I have picked this time may take me more than a week but I am so excited because I have been wanting to read more of the classics and this series in particular.

Summary (copied from Goodreads):
Frodo Baggins knew the Ringwraiths were searching for him - and the Ring of Power he bore that would enable Sauron to destroy all that was good in Middle-earth. Now it was up to Frodo and his faithful servant Sam to carry the Ring to where it could be detroyed - in the very center of Sauron's dark kingdom.

So what are you planning to read this week?