Miles has decided to go to boarding school. He wants to search for his Great Perhaps, and he doesn't feel like he can find it in his dreary town. Soon he arrives at Culver Creek; a boarding school for teens. His roommate, who everyone calls The Colonel, immediately dubs Miles as Pudge, and introduces him to his group of friends and their way of life. Miles quickly falls in love with one of the friends, but there is something mysterious about her. With Alaska, you can never quite tell what she is thinking, or why she does the things she does.
AGE RANGE TEENS
THEMES
Friends
Boarding School
Romance
Death
Philosophy
OVERALL RATING 8/10
John Green has found the formula for the perfect YA novel, and now he seems to use it for every book he writes. I have read three of his books, and honestly I'm kind of tired of it. They begin with something big and philosophical, in this case "The Great Perhaps", they have lots of swearing, intimacy (always almost the amount the reader hopes for, but not quite), and drugs or alcohol in the first half, so that the readers stay engaged and wanting more through the second half. Somebody dies, almost dies, or considers dying a little bit past the middle, and in the end there's some long inner monologue or school paper that is extremely intellectual and concludes the emotional journey. The main characters always love philosophy. I actually kind of enjoy reading these books, but I find it really annoying that they are specifically written to get you hooked and always wanting more. That is often my problem with YA - they're built so that you can't put them down, and it is so obvious. I also think it is worth noting that, in the three John Green books I've read, not a single one had any LGBTQ+ characters.
PROS
Engaging
Philosophical
Interesting
Exciting
CONS
Teens dialogue still isn't good
It's written so that you can't put it down and you're always wanting more (spoiler: the 'more' never comes in any of these books, you'll have to just keep reading them into infinity and you'll still never find what you wanted)