Admittedly, I did a very stupid thing before I read this book: I developed high expectations. That being said, I was disappointed. I found Looking For Alaska to be dull and uninspiring. It felt like a story I'd heard a dozen times before.
I believe that whether any given person will like the book depends on their opinion of the title character Alaska and the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. Alaska Young is the girl at the heart of the story, a seeming MPDG who turns out to be a rather clever deconstruction of the concept. I had no patience for her MPDG traits yet didn't like her "crazy, sullen bitch" side enough to care for the deconstruction. As a result, I didn't particularly care about what happened to her or sympathize with the characters in the book who did, and this made it impossible for me to like the book as a whole.
Literature Manic Pixie Dream Girl: The Book
Admittedly, I did a very stupid thing before I read this book: I developed high expectations. That being said, I was disappointed. I found Looking For Alaska to be dull and uninspiring. It felt like a story I'd heard a dozen times before.
I believe that whether any given person will like the book depends on their opinion of the title character Alaska and the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. Alaska Young is the girl at the heart of the story, a seeming MPDG who turns out to be a rather clever deconstruction of the concept. I had no patience for her MPDG traits yet didn't like her "crazy, sullen bitch" side enough to care for the deconstruction. As a result, I didn't particularly care about what happened to her or sympathize with the characters in the book who did, and this made it impossible for me to like the book as a whole.