It is a very long time since I have read a book in one sitting and sobbed into the pages.
The first half of this book is written with a light, intelligent and humorous hand and then the juggernaut hits and you're left literally screaming at the book to take a different course, to admit with a smile that it's made a mistake - to turn the page and hope that you've just been pranked. But you haven't and the sinking, settling knowledge that you're heading down a very dark tunnel of despair clings to you, forcing you to turn the page and breathe deeply because you're sure that if you don't, you might drown in the utter sadness of it all.
I can not recommend this book highly enough. I wish I could make a wish for all of you to simultaneously have this book land in your lap and there be a mass reading of it.
I was stunned when I entered my five star review into Amazon that 'Looking for Alaska' had received a handful of one star reviews; then I read them. If there was any justice and sense in the world they would be removed. Some people have given it a one star because it happens to have perfectly common teenage sexual experiences referenced and some readers have been outraged by the fact that this is classed as teenage fiction. It's a shame; I can't wait to hand my thirteen year old daughter this book as a thing of beauty, an expression of raw and truthful human experience. I rarely read books twice but already my hand itches to open up its pages once again - the only problem is that I've got to reclaim it from the chain of friends who have also fallen in love with it.
WAY BEYOND 5 STARS! A WHOLE GALAXY OF THEM.
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