Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Looking for Alaska

As young adult books go, this is a good one. Split into two parts before creating the high school vibe, making friends, japes, and lightheartedness followed by after, after a accident we tumble into grief and sadness. Beautifully written, capturing teenage angst, and the joy of living and loving, heartbreaking, poignant, funny and sad a good read for teenagers who would get something out of reading it and me too a fifty something cis woman. Read as part of a book club with the banned book criteria. There is no way this book should be banned in some schools in the States. Yes, it would generate discussion, but what a book. Fab stuff.

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ahhhhginger's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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jaedee09's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

#TravellinGGbookclub

I was not the target audience for this book, and I think I would have eaten it up if I read it 15 years ago. I thought the characters were very raw and real, and I can relate to being at a school feeling like an outsider. The writing is beautiful, and Greene has a way with a metaphor.

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loverofeels's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

hated this as a tween but now i couldn't put it down

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efari22's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

this book will always and forever be a favorite of mine! i read it in 2013 as a 16 year old and i read it in 2024 as a 27 year old and i still love it. i maybe have gleaned even more from it now that im older. the complexity of humans as seen from the mind of a 16 year old boy. yet, through his vision in able to draw my own conclusions and hypothesis for everything with the help of my life experiences. the vulnerability of human in this book never ceases to make me feel both more and less alone simultaneously. this book makes me long for the days where nothing was that big a deal yet everything felt so important and all encompassing. i yearned for the days where i was a version of Alaska, always suffering in my teenage mind, because there’s a nostalgia in that hurt and suffering. yet, as an adult, i can appreciate the growth from where i came. because i did what Alaska didn’t do— i didn’t go straight and fast. i kept going. anyway, a sappy journal entry to say, i love this book.

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