Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska by John Green follows Miles who is a new student at boarding school.  An outcast at his past school Miles quickly falls in with a crowd of kids who spend most of their time smoking and drinking while planning pranks on their enemies the rich kids at schools they call the weekend warriors.  Alaska, a girl in his group is Miles' obsession, and we see her struggle until the unforseen happens.

I just couldn't take this book.  It was so well regarded and I've enjoyed other books by John Green but something about the setting and characters didn't work for me.  It takes place in apparently the worst boarding school ever.  Where there's little to no supervision aside from one teacher who runs after those who are obviously misbehaving (and rarely catches them).  The kids smoke (and smoke and smoke, smoking is almost a subplot it's used so much) and drink and hang out in rooms of the opposite sex with no oversight at all which I find totally unrealistic for a school that's housing minors.  The characters seem to be caricatures of the troubled and lonely and the main character doesn't even think twice before taking a cigarette or drinking.

Appropriateness:  This is certainly not a book for young teens.  There are fairly graphic descriptions of sexual acts.  The characters drink and smoke and do drugs as a major plot point in the book.  I would recommend it to teens 16+