A few years ago, I heard my friends rave about John Green books. However, I had a hard time understanding the hype around his writing. After reading two of his other books, I picked up Looking for Alaska and immediately fell in love with the tales about a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, insane prank wars and perhaps the saddest story about unrequited love ever. It turned me into a John Green fan. Therefore, I almost shouted out in excitement when I saw the first trailer for a Looking for Alaska limited series on Hulu.

The series follows Miles (Charlie Plummer), a shy, awkward kid who decides to enroll at Culver Creek Boarding School in order to discover what he calls his “great perhaps.” His father tells him tales of the pranks he used to pull when he was a student at the same boarding school and hopes that Miles will not do the same. However, getting into trouble is inevitable when he befriends his roommate Chip “The Colonel” Martin (Denny Love) and falls in love with Alaska Young (Kristine Froseth). The gang enlists on many adventures and prank wars that land them into lots of trouble along the way.

I was a bit skeptical of the mini-series when it was first announced. In my mind, it seemed like the novel that I had loved so much was getting the short end of the stick compared to other John Green novels that had gotten film adaptations with big budgets and huge audiences. I didn’t think a Hulu mini-series would do the book justice. I was pleasantly surprised. Because the episodes are 40 minutes long each, no detail was spared or forgotten and it enabled the writers to add more to the story. This is not possible to do in most film adaptations where many details are left out in order to fit a certain time frame. In the end, I was actually delighted that the book was adapted into a TV series rather than a movie.

Quite possibly the best part of the series is the contrast between the characters. 

The shy character of Miles is contrasted by more eccentric characters such as Alaska and Chip. Also, there is a difference between the wealth of the main characters and the group called the Weekday Warriors that drives most of the conflict in the show. Each person has a distinctive personality type which makes it so that everyone who watches the show can find someone to relate to. While watching the show, it is easy to fall in love with the characters on the screen.

The only potential concern I see with the series is that it is not exactly like the original book. Many new storylines, scenes and characters were added into the show in order to create long episodes. Although I enjoyed many of the additions and thought that they made sense with the original plot, many intense fans might hate that the writers got creative with the script.

Overall, I was very impressed with this series. I thought that the actors had a good sense of who their character was and did the book justice. The adaptation of the novel into a TV show rather than a film gives a lot of pros and cons for the viewer. Every detail of the book was presented just as I had imagined it and the series also included many new additions that kept it fresh. Looking for Alaska is the perfect binge-worthy series for the winter season.