Looking for Alaska by John Green

Green, J. (2005). Looking for Alaska. New York: Dutton Children's Books.
ISBN-10 014241221X
ISBN-13 978-0142412213
221 pgs
Format: Book
Genre: Realistic
Classification: Fiction
Age level: Young Adult

Reader's annotation
Miles seeks new experiences as he leaves his boring life in Florida and enrolls in a college prep boarding school in rural Alabama. He quickly makes friends and is deep into his new life when events take a tragic turn and lead to some serious soul-searching.

Summary
Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter is bored and out of place at his high school. In search of ‘the great perhaps,’ he decides to leave Florida in his junior year and to go away to boarding school, as many in his family have, at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama. He befriends his roommate Chip, a rebellious scholarship student, and Chip’s best friend, a girl named Alaska Young. Like every other boy on campus, Miles is instantly smitten with Alaska. She’s smart, gorgeous and has an appetite for a little danger. Miles’s social life is soon filled with parties, smoking, drinking, and pranks. As Miles gets to know Alaska better, her deep unhappiness is revealed. When she is hit by a car and killed, Miles is left reeling, unsure if her death was an accident or suicide.

Notes
Looking for Alaska is a smart and literate book that takes on heavy themes of love, death and grief in the setting of a rural boarding school. Readers may feel frustrated by the unresolved ending.

Awards and honors
Michael Printz Award, ALA Best Book for Young Adults, 2006
ALA Quick Pick
LA Times 2005 Book Prize Finalist
NYPL Book for the Teen Age
Booklist Editor's Choice, 2005
School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, 2005

Also by John Green
An Abundance or Katherines