It's been a while since I read a YA book, so it took me a minute to get into the writing style. Once I did, wow. I look at this book a little like I look at movies like ET or Super 8. Rather than capturing some sentimental idea of what children and teenagers are like, they force you to come to terms with the fact that kids are obsessed with figuring out what sex and swearing and sin are. In my high school days, I knew all the characters in Looking for Alaska. I could almost put the names and faces of my peers to Takumi, to Alaska, to the Colonel. They felt real. And I look back at elementary school and middle school, when we were searching for what it meant to be an autonomous adult, and I could picture my friends and I huddled in the corner of the library reading snippets of this book out loud to each other in hushed tones, like we did with the Alice books once upon a time.

As an adult, the book hits home on other levels-- finding our way out of the labyrinth, seeking some idealistic Great Perhaps, and dealing with deep, soul crushing guilt.