Looking for Alaska

Author: John Green
Recommended Age: Young Adult
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 0-525-47506-0
Year Published: 2005
No. Pages: 221
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Main Character Gender: Male
Read & Reviewed by: Jarrett



In the first half of this novel Miles (Pudge) Halters leaves Florida for a boarding school in Alabama hoping for something different. Nothing can prepare him for what happens at Culver Creek Boarding School. Pudge befriends his roommate known as the Colonel, Takumi the Japanese whiz kid, Lara, the cute Romanian girl and the leader of their group, gorgeous Alaska Young. Pudge is quickly initiated into the school by being dragged out of his room in his boxers early one morning, duct taped liked a mummy and thrown into a lake. Pudge and his friends get into quite a lot of mischief which includes pulling off many pranks.

In the second half of the novel, Alaska dies and Pudge and his friends struggle to understand how this could have happened. Was it an accident or did she commit suicide? Could her friends have prevented her death? Will any of them ever be the same?

This story is told through the eyes of Pudge and he gives an honest perspective of the characters and how they each deal with death. Pudge is able to show all the characters including himself, in different lights, both positive and negative and this gives the novel added depth.

Initially, the pranks in the novel pulled me into the story and gave the novel humour. What teenager doesn't like a good prank? What really made this book stand out from others I've read is its structure. Dividing the book into sections labelled Before and After and counting up in the Before section and counting down in the After section gave the book so much more of its own personality. It also highlighted the climax of the book: Alaska's death. This made her death that much more pivotal for me, the reader.

Green shows how each characters copes with Alaska's death and demonstrates all the stages of grief. As the characters are affected by Alaska's death, they change and I changed along with them. I saw how the characters weren’t relaxed, how they made fewer jokes. They also got angrier and freaked out more easily. When Alaska first died her friends cried at even the slightest hint of her and they were not getting any of their assignments in on time at school. All of this was realistic and intrigued me.

I gave Looking For Alaska a 10 out of 10 for its sense of humour, amazing characters, the structure of the book and how Green tackled Alaska's death. Parents should know there is aggressive alcohol use, much cursing and a brief sex scene.