Reviews with content warning for Vomit - Looking for Alaska

Reviews tagging Vomit

Looking for Alaska, by John Green

29 reviews

imaginethisreader's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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miles862's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

Hm. I think I like John Green's writing better in small doses. This is a very...quotable book? You can pull out plenty of lovely prose and turns of phrase. The problem is pretty much everything in between. The idea of this book was one that I was all on board with. The before and after structure and countdown sections was very well done. However, I didn't particularly care about the characters. For every turn of phrase that I though was well done, there were paragraphs that I rolled my eyes at. It just tried to hard often. I'd have to read more to decide if it was just coincidence or not, but from the few John Green books I've read it seems like the narrators are largely interchangeable? And possibly very strongly self-insert in a boring way. I think this book wanted to critically analyze the problem of the manic-pixie-dream-girl and how people are more complex and have their own narratives and selves that we don't know...but I don't feel like it managed to pull it off.

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matchababesandbooks's review

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Very interesting. This was my second John Green book (the first being The Fault in Our Stars), and I’m not totally sure which one I enjoyed more. I don’t mind John Green’s writing, in fact, I think I like it more than most people, but it’s not my absolute favorite. However, it didn’t take away from the story. The characters were likable but a little irritable, as all teenagers are lmao. I’m a sucker for a good boarding school trope, so I already knew I’d at least like this. And I did. Although, I bought this book and was eager to read it because I read reviews and watched videos of people grouping this in with the likes of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Maybe I’m a little biased because Perks is one of my favorite books, but I wouldn’t say Looking for Alaska is on the same level. I think there could’ve been so much more. I understand that a big plot point in the story is that Pudge nor the reader knows all that much about Alaska, but this makes it very hard for me to connect emotionally with the book.

Spoiler

How am I supposed to be utterly devastated when Alaska dies when I don’t even know her? And in regards to her death, almost all of the “After” section just feels really repetitive. It picked up more toward the end, but that’s because Pudge and the Colonel were finally starting to function normally again. I feel like I’m shitting too much. I really did like the book I swear.

While I was a little underwhelmed, I think it’s just a common thing for a book to be immensely overhyped on social media. But I will say that I giggled a little at most of the jokes cracked in the book, and I haven’t watched the series yet but I’m really excited to!

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books_r_cool's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

I was not expecting to love this book as much as I did. It’s about grief and love and being a teenager and I’m obsessed with it. Some of the quotes in here are just SO GOOD I loved it <33
Also I read The Fault in our Stars but I really love this one so I think it’s better

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rory_john14's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

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lilith_hmr's review against another edition

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emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Finished this book within 10 days. It was a really reflective book. I almost cried at the climax of what happened.

The book beautifully captures, grief, death and guilt. It also explains very well the concept of the afterlife and why we believe in it if we do.

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chloevienna's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.75

pretty good! haven’t read a john green book since i was like 12 - fun to dive back in! i think a bit of the commentary in this has aged poorly, but the effort is there. i like the slice-of-life feel this had, and it was a fun and quick read.

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