Before. Miles “Pudge” Halter’s whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the “Great Perhaps” (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.

I really enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars and since John Green is worshipped as the God of YA – I still haven’t figured out why -, my expectations were extremely high. Everyone and their grandma seems to love it. Well, and then there’s me, the odd one out, the one with the most unpopular opinion ever: I’ve never been so bored reading a novel I read voluntarily. I was bored senseless. I couldn’t even get angry with or roll my eyes at some of the more annoying parts.

This book is read in schools – maybe that should have made me wary. 99% of the books I read back in the good old days were extremely boring but of literary value. Or so they say. Same goes for Looking for Alaska. The writing might be eloquent, but even the most glorious langauge in the world couldn’t make me like a novel when everything else is pretty nondescript.

I wasn’t invested in the characters. We had nothing in common. I wasn’t interested in them. I really just didn’t care and nothing was able to change that. I was also hoping for some major action. After all, they were supposed to play some epic pranks. Instead, they weren’t all that interesting or funny or epic or frequent. Everything just burbled along.

The breathtaking, all-consuming love story that I read out of the blurb doesn’t even exist. That’s probably also the reason why I just didn’t care what had happened that lead to the after. I’m all in for a grim, tragic, and atmospheric story, but the characters weren’t able to carry it. For me, it just didn’t work out in the slightest.

So yeah, this really wasn’t my kind of book. I’m quite surprised I finished it but then I never DNF. At least that means I can say that I tried. So please, just ignore me and continue loving this book. I might not be able to understand you, but tastes differ.