It seemed a bit too clichéd to write a review for TFiOS—otherwise known as The Fault in Our Stars—as the film adaptation will be released in less than a month. So instead, I will review Looking for Alaska, another masterpiece from the brilliant mind of John Green. It was his debut novel, but it delivers as many brutal truths as those that followed in its wake. In this particular tale, Miles, our protagonist, leaves his Floridian home behind to attend a boarding school in Alabama… in search of “a Great Perhaps.” Miles, you see, collects “last words.” (Foreshadowing, perhaps?) Note Exhibit A: “Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were, “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.” That’s why I’m going. So I don’t have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.” Introducing a concept such as a Great Perhaps so early in the book is part of Green’s genius. It hooked me. I bet it has hooked you. I bet you are already reserving your copy so that you can find out more about this Great Perhaps. What I tell people when they ask about John Green is this: He is the master of the one-liner. Even if that one-liner takes a paragraph to develop… even if that one-liner is, in fact, actually a paragraph in length. Note Exhibit B: “I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.” Miles is, of course, talking about Alaska here, but Green’s words are simultaneously so personal yet so universal that you feel you are that hurricane… or that you are the drizzle in love with the hurricane. Or that, all weather aside, you know exactly what this guy is talking about because you have experienced it in your own life. Looking for Alaska is fearless in the way it addresses the sensitive issues young adults struggle with on a daily basis. There is no sugarcoating here, or crunchy candy shell. There is only The Truth… or the version(s) of The Truth as seen through the eyes and minds of Green’s thoughtful and honest characters. I’ll admit it; the feeling I had when I finished this book stayed with me for days. And this particular quote from Looking for Alaska will stay with me for a lifetime: “When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books.”