LOOKING FOR ALASKA

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Green, John. 2005. LOOKING FOR ALASKA. New York: Dutton. ISBN 0525475060

PLOT SUMMARY
This is the story of Miles Halter who is a teenager from Florida that decides to attend a boarding school in Alabama in search of his “great perhaps”. Miles adjusts to life without his parents monitoring his every move. He is searching for new friends and a more exciting life than his boring and uneventful life in Florida. Miles new found friends teach him about smoking and cigarettes. One friend is particular is very special, Alaska. She is beautiful, intellectual, and liked to live life on the edge. Alaska was traumatized as a child by her mom’s sudden death. The story takes a sudden turn when Alaska is killed in a car crash in the middle of the night rushing to take flower’s to her mother’s grave. She felt that she had let her mother down again. The shock of the death left Miles and their close friends reeling and attempting to find the answers as to why she died.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This story depicts a teenagers need to find something better and different than what they already know. Miles made several friends, yet he had to learn how to be a friend. He found the social Labyrinth a challenge to navigate. It was a daily struggle at first, adjusting to boarding school. Miles fell in Love with Alaska and the idea of loving her. The chapters are labeled days before and after; this leads the reader to assume that something is going to go wrong for Alaska. It was through her death that Miles was able to recognize that she had touched the lives of many people at the school. Miles matures as he realizes that he should have been a better friend. The book illustrates the range of feelings that a teenager goes through when they lose a close friend to drunk driving. Miles and his friends set out to find answers as to why she died. The book also discusses drinking and the problems that it caused the students. Alaska was using drinking and smoking to ease her pain. In the end, it is what killed her.

REVIEWS
Reviewed in Publishers Weekly: “Readers will only hope that this is not the last word from this promising new author.”
Reviewed in School Library Journal: “Miles's narration is alive with sweet, self-deprecating humor, and his obvious struggle to tell the story truthfully adds to his believability.”
Michael L. Printz Award
School Library Journal Best Book of the Year 2005

CONNECTIONS
*Students can learn more about famous farewells:
Allen, Robert. FAMOUS LAST WORDS: THE ULTIMATE COLLECTION OF FINALES AND FAREWELLS. ISBN 1856487083
*Other stories by John Green:
Green, John. AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES. ISBN 0142410705
Green, John. PAPER TOWNS. ISBN 0525478183