Looking for Alaska

Or the best book to grace YA bookshelves within the last twenty years.
Sorry Sir Pratchett. (He is actually a knight. Of Literature. I love the English.)
At any rate, I first heard of John Green though a video by either Charlieissocoollike, Nerimon, or LittleRadge. Probably all three. Link to the post talking about them HERE. But don't read past the first paragraph and a half.
So I got curious enough to click on this YouTube channel called Vlogbrothers. Vlogbrothers has a very interesting history that I don't completely understand because I never actually looked into it. What I have pieced together, in bit and pieces is that it started when they(John and Hank Green, the BROTHERS) decided not to e-mail each other for a whole year and only communicate through video blogs(hence, VLOG) and called it Brotherhood 2.0. So I watched them for a while. About a week before I announced that I must have one of John Green's books or I would die.
Okay, actually, I went on Borders.com and offered to pay the 10.00 for the award winning paperback.
My life would be a bit more awesome if I were a bit more dramatic. But I am a book nerd, so I won't. Ever.
**Which is not to say that I am not awesome. I am awesome. Ask my friends.**
ON TO AN ACTUAL BOOK REVIEW-Y THING
I loved Looking for Alaska. If there was one book I would recommend reading from YA living authors.
I haven't read any of John Green other books yet, but if they are as good or better than Looking For Alaska, John Green will earn a coveted spot on my Author Crush list. He's pretty much on there anyway, but I prefer to read more before it's official.
That's because I stood up at one point when I was reading it, looked at my family and said "I need to go cry and be emotional now. Please leave me alone." And I went down stairs and cried and laughed and loved every letter of the section.
It sounds extreme, but usually I don't get emotional about books. Sure, Dobby, Hedwig and Fred--you have no idea how much I cried. But I had basically 7 books to fall in love with each one of them.
This was about 100 pages, and I was crying. I had known them for about five hours of my life and I felt like I knew all of the characters. They were so real, so human, so there in every word that I could see them.
And my first coherent thought was, "I want to write like this."
I don't say that often, at least not that quickly.
There is literally nothing bad I can say about these characters. I wanted to hug them, I got mad at them and I laughed with them. I wanted to be friends with them.
The writing was amazing, and inspiring. It dealt with the ideas of life and death and all the ways different people deal with them. What happens to us after we die? How do we deal with the not knowing?
And the best part is, while he presents the way the characters answered the questions, he doesn't answer them for us.
INTROSPECTION IS AWESOME.
There were three things that really stuck with me. The entire book is awesome, but looking at it, these things really make sense to me.
1.) The idea of looking for a Great Perhaps. Something big out there that means a lot to us. Something big out there, waiting for all of us.
2.) "The Labyrinth blows, but I choose it." That was said by The Colonel, and I totally agree with him. I love life, and sometimes it sucks, but it's the best we've got.
3.) "I was born into Bolivar's labyrinth, and so I must believe in the hope of Rabelais's Great Perhaps." Which is actually something John Green wrote about last words and was at the end of the book. It said a lot to me, and it just made sense in some odd manner that I can't explain right now.
I read it though twice this week.
And it was just as awesome the second time through.
I suppose part of the draw was that it was written by a guy who I could easily relate to, which is awesome.
So in conclusion...DFTBA