Type of read: Commuter (listened to and from work)

What made me pick it up: Green is a regular on my TBR list and 'Looking for Alaska' has a history as a banned book. I will forever stand by the mentality that banned books need to be read.

Overall rating: Green will forever be one of my favorite authors. The way they are able to put emotion on the page in such a blunt, ripping, real way shows the immense talent they have for writing. I don't know how I haven't read 'Looking for Alaska' before this point but to be honest, I feel like 'Looking for Alaska' came into my life at the time that I needed it. I don't think high school or even college me would have been able to fully grasp and embrace the story. I think high school and college me still would have absolutely enjoyed 'Looking for Alaska' but it also would have been marked for continual reread (I have many books like that including Angela's Ashes, Speak, The Things They Carried...). For me, 'Looking for Alaska' was a book on forgiveness, finding yourself, and coping with all the really rough shit that you're not quite sure you can actually make it through. I laughed, I cried, I cringed, I hurt, I FELT. And I 100% recommend 'Looking for Alaska.'

Reader's note: I feel like 'Looking for Alaska' is the perfect example of "I've been thrown out of better places than this." I have read much worse, much more explicit, much more banned book-worthy books than 'Looking for Alaska.' I will never for the life of me understand the reasoning behind how people cling to a few pages of a book and determine it to be ban-worthy without taking the whole story into account. All that said, f*** banning books.