Looking for Alaska

by John Green

The award-winning, genre-defining debut from John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and The Fault in Our Stars
Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award • A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist • A New York Times Bestseller • A USA Today Bestseller • NPR’s Top Ten Best-Ever Teen Novels • TIME magazine’s 100 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time • A PBS Great American Read Selection • Millions of copies sold!
 
First drink. First prank. First friend. First love.

Last words.
 
Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked #1 bestselling author John Green’s arrival as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction.

Newly updated edition includes a brand-new Readers' Guide featuring a Q&A with author John Green

• ISBN10: 0142402516
• ISBN13: 9780142402511
• Publish Date: 28 December 2006 (first published 3 March 2005)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Penguin USA
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 272
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780142402511

Reviews

[KitsuneBae]

4.5 stars

Despite the sensitive topic covered by this book, I still had a lot of laugh while reading it... Miles a.k.a Pudge, the Colonel, Takumi, and Alaska are all awesome characters.

[boghunden]

I had very high expectations towards this book. After reading [b:The Fault in Our Stars|11870085|The Fault in Our Stars|John Green|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1360206420s/11870085.jpg|16827462] I was hoping that this would be good. Not as good, but just good. It wasn't. Not really. It was just another YA book about teenagers and their highschool experience. I was expecting something more.When finally I reached the second part of the book, I found that I was being let down once more. What this book didn't have in the story, it certainly had in humor.

[Jyc]

★★★ // because no one can catch the motherfucking fox

[Kelly]

John Green is simply brilliant. Love his minimal realistic style that is almost poetic and eloquent. Thought provoking. Loved it immensely.

[clementine]

I don't know how to rate this book.

I have such a weird relationship with it, honestly. I first read it in April 2011, and liked it less than I thought I would based on all the hype. But then it stuck with me. I couldn't get it out of my head. I kept thinking about it. So I decided that I loved it, and it was magnificent, etc.

Reading it again, it's less good than it was the first time. I think this is in large part because I read John Green's books mostly in order, and there is a lot of clear improvement with his writing. When I read LFA for the first time, I didn't have his later books to compare it to. Now, though, having read all of his books, I liked it less.

I mean, I still think it's really fabulous YA that does a great job of not talking down to the reader, grappling with some complex issues, and presenting flawed, realistic characters. I don't even know what my exact issue was with it this time around, nor could I pinpoint it the first time. I suppose part of it is that the plot is fairly formulaic; there's the whole boy-meets-girl, boy-thinks-girl-is-the-most-incredible-human-ever structure thing going on. While Green does play around with it, obviously trying to explore the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype (although somewhat unsuccessfully, I think; Paper Towns does a better job of that), and throwing us a curveball at the end, the plot is really nothing special.

One of the other issues I picked up on this time around was Alaska herself. I think the way Green wrote her is incredibly interesting, as she is never given her own voice and is shrouded in mystery. This makes it harder to connect to her on an emotional level, but it adds a really neat layer to the book: you only see Alaska through Pudge's (absolutely unreliable) narration. I really like that aspect, but at the same time it was hard for me to connect with her this time. I liked her the first time, but this time I realized how barebones her character really is. I have no doubt that it was intentional, but it did make it hard to really care about her fate. The exploration of her death is well-done, so it's not like the success of the book hinges on liking/caring about her as a character, but I would have liked more of her. Not even necessarily more that would make me LIKE her, just more than would make me KNOW her. Although, of course, that goes against what Green was intending to do by making Miles hold her up as his MPDG who he never bothers to understand.

I don't know, I definitely was not as involved/invested in the book this time around, and had a totally different experience reading it. But I still think that the prose is fantastic, the characters are well-rounded, believable, and human, and John Green is a really intelligent writer who subtly plays around with a variety of themes. I do like the book a lot - I just am not in love with it. Which is weird, because I thought it was my favourite John Green book, but now I'm not so sure! I guess I'll have to re-read his other books, although right now I'm re-reading the Harry Potter series for the billionth time, so WHO EVEN KNOWS, MAN?

[Stephanie]

More like 4.5 stars. I felt like Pudge's devotion to Alaska (in Before) seemed lacking in development. I felt I understood the feelings better in After. Overall, very good book. And my first John Green book.

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Looking for Alaska is, tragically, not one of my favorites. I wish I liked it a bit more - so many of my friends list it as a favorite. But of all John Green's books... it's my least favorite. Here's why.

The main character, Miles "Pudge" Halter, is a self-centered brat and I can't stand him.

I suppose it's a bit unfair at times - after all, he's written well to his character and perhaps it's not fair of me to judge a book so harshly on the personality of its protagonist. As a reader, I need the protagonist. I fall in love with characters more often than in the story. In typical John Green fashion, there are all sorts of great minor characters in this novel. I like Chip ("The Colonel"). I like Alaska, more or less (ugh, meet me in high school, but less dramatic). But... Miles.

I find it really difficult to fully enjoy a book when I want to sucker punch the main character in the stomach and tell him to get over himself.

That aside, this book presents some interesting philosophical questions about the nature of life and death and human existence. It discusses a few moments in religious/cultural history that illustrate different viewpoints on this topic and I find that interesting. I also like John Green's discussion of the stages of grief and how they appear differently in different people. You can see John Green's intelligence shining through his writing and it's inspiring. He makes you want to go look up other peoples' last words.

Storywise, though, this feels scattered at times and too simple. There's the whole great enigma of a problem and the way the characters find their way through is frustrating, too easy. It's a style I would expect to see in a debut novel, and Green has definitely grown; I feel his newer works are much stronger.

All in all, Looking For Alaska is worth a read, because it is interesting, but it's not a time-worn favorite of mine, personally.

[rakesandrogues]

Loreal recommended this book to me a few months ago when she read it. I’m always wary of contemporary fiction because I have this terrible belief that nothing really exciting happens. But after reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson I vowed to read all of John Green’s books because I enjoyed it so very much. I finally borrowed this book from the library and read it over the weekend.

My first impression of the book was it didn’t look like it was going to be a cheerful story, judging from its cover. Was this the reason why I had held off reading this book for so long? It’s one of those books that I was always aware of but never picked up. But once I started to read, I found myself enjoying it immensely. One of the most memorable first scenes is when Miles says that his dad hates it when he marks up books with a highlighter. He had a good point, I admit, that it would be easier to find quotes, but like his dad, I would hate to mark up my books. However, Looking for Alaska was just that type of book that made me want to grab a highlighter and underline all my favorite lines. Alas, I couldn’t even flag the book since I borrowed it from the library! I loved all the characters in this story. I think they have all affected me tremendously to the point that I feel like I know them. Whenever I come across a biography, I will think of Miles. Whenever I see a room full of books and a bottle of wine, I will think of Alaska. This book had brought back memories of high school that made me think about my past from basketball games (though I never even attended one) to pranks and mischief. My experiences fail to compare to the kids at Culver Creek’s, but I was left thinking mostly of good times. The book is not terribly long, and it was very easy to read. The pages flew by quickly, and before I know it, I was toward the end of the book. I did manage to figure out the big “why” at the end of the story a bit early, but I thought that the ending of Looking for Alaska was perfect. It was just enough to give the readers closure and of course, it ended with brilliant Last Words.