Shay Caroline's Reviews > Looking for Alaska

I don't read many YA novels, just the occasional one, but always before I have found that, although the main character(s) are young people, the writing is basically the same as any mainstream novel. Not this time. This story of an inexperienced young man's first year at a boarding prep school and the friends he makes there was engaging for the first two-thirds of the book. There is a countdown (like, "one hundred twenty-six days before" as chapter headings) and one naturally wonders, "Before what?"

When the "what" finally gets there, the story goes right down the tubes. I was okay with some of the previous unlikely pranks and such, but the story was still good. When the Tragic Event occurs, it not only failed to move me, but the extended handwringing of the young protagonist got downright annoying. A girl who was more erratic than entrancing in my view (but not in his) makes by far her worst choices of a series of sketchy ones, and because he feels that he "let" her, he feels responsible and rakes himself and the reader over the coals for about fifty pages. I can certainly grant that this character might do that, given his youth and lack of life and relationship experience, but for my part, I just wanted to shake him. Moreover, the girl in question hated patriarchy and would have told him to shove his post facto urge to control and shield her, even from a terrible choice.

The blurbs compare this novel to A Separate Peace, which is better than this, and Love Story, which is an insult rather than a bouquet, as Love Story, despite its popularity at the time, was gosh awful treacle. In sum, I'm definitely not on the bandwagon with this book, but then, I wasn't part of the target audience to begin with, so there's that. Not recommended for anyone over the age of sixteen.