Looking for Alaska is the story of a group of adolescents at a prestigious boarding school and the struggles that they deal with. It's also not terribly original and, for the most part, only adequately delivered on.
I never find myself buying into the situations or the characters, save for the occasional moment here and there. Nobody talks like these characters talk, and while people like Aaron Sorkin are capable of hyper intelligent, unbelievable yet captivating dialogue, that just wasn't the case here for me. I constantly found myself pulled out of the immersion by some unnatural line of dialogue. Maybe it's the writing or maybe it's the performances. In either case it makes it very difficult to feel immersed and truly invested in the story.
It also feels like just another entry into an ever growing catalog of similarly themed content. From what I'm told, the book was published years ago, at a time when it likely would have been more distinct but times have changed and now we see content like this fairly often. That isn't always a bad thing but when it's a bleak and depressing note being hit, I really don't feel the need for tons of repetition on that.
It's not all bad though. Some of the characters are fun. The Colonel and the Eagle were both very entertaining to me. And while the whole thing didn't knock it out of the park for me, the ending definitely carried weight and a certain power to it that I do think is valuable.
I just wish it wasn't something I've been seeing so much lately.
I never find myself buying into the situations or the characters, save for the occasional moment here and there. Nobody talks like these characters talk, and while people like Aaron Sorkin are capable of hyper intelligent, unbelievable yet captivating dialogue, that just wasn't the case here for me. I constantly found myself pulled out of the immersion by some unnatural line of dialogue. Maybe it's the writing or maybe it's the performances. In either case it makes it very difficult to feel immersed and truly invested in the story.
It also feels like just another entry into an ever growing catalog of similarly themed content. From what I'm told, the book was published years ago, at a time when it likely would have been more distinct but times have changed and now we see content like this fairly often. That isn't always a bad thing but when it's a bleak and depressing note being hit, I really don't feel the need for tons of repetition on that.
It's not all bad though. Some of the characters are fun. The Colonel and the Eagle were both very entertaining to me. And while the whole thing didn't knock it out of the park for me, the ending definitely carried weight and a certain power to it that I do think is valuable.
I just wish it wasn't something I've been seeing so much lately.