I really wanted to like this book, but I just couldn’t. Don’t get me wrong — the writing is rich and engaging. Green is obviously a gifted writer. But I just didn’t like the characters that much. They are portrayed as very intelligent, yet they smoke and drink profusely, plan elaborate and pointless pranks, and are often overdramatic and obsessive. Alaska is not as compelling as Pudge seems to think, and I often wondered why so many guys had fallen head over heels for her. Was it her skimpy outfits, her ample chest, the “bad girl” allure? I didn’t think she was all that charismatic.

The plot wasn’t great, either, and I just didn’t care enough about the characters to care what happened to them. The parts that were supposed to make me cry didn’t, and the parts that were supposed to make me laugh didn’t. The fact that Pudge and the Colonel spent so much time “looking for Alaska” yet didn’t get a resolution made me feel unsatisfied by the end of the book.

There are some big questions that Green tackles—the meaning of life, how to survive pain and suffering, what happens after you die, etc.—but I just didn’t feel like they were answered sufficiently, and I found it difficult to believe a kid who spends much of the book drinking and smoking and pining after a girl would have such a revelation, just in time for his final exam and the end of the book. After reading The Fault in Our Stars, I had higher expectations for this book, and unfortunately it just didn’t do it for me.