Barnes & Noble Review from Discover Great New Writers
A deeply affecting coming-of-age story, Looking for Alaska traces the journey of Miles Halter, a misfit Florida teenager who leaves the safety of home for a boarding school in Alabama and a chance to explore the "Great Perhaps." Debut novelist and NPR commentator Green perfectly captures the intensity of feeling and despair that defines adolescence in this hip, shocking, and emotionally charged work of fiction.

Miles has a quirky interest in famous people's last words, especially François Rabelais's final statement, "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." Determined not to wait for death to begin a similar quest, Miles convinces his parents to let him leave home. Once settled at Culver Creek Preparatory School, he befriends a couple of equally gifted outcasts: his roommate Chip -- commonly known as the Colonel -- who has a predilection for memorizing long, alphabetical lists for fun; and the beautiful and unpredictable Alaska, whom Miles comes to adore.

The kids grow closer as they make their way through a school year filled with contraband, tests, pranks, breakups, and revelations about family and life. But as the story hurtles toward its shattering climax, chapter headings like "forty-six days before" and "the last day" portend a tragic event -- one that will change Miles forever and lead him to new conclusions about the value of his cherished "Great Perhaps." (Summer 2005 Selection)

Teenager Miles chronicles his first year at boarding school. According to PW, "The novel's chief appeal lies in Miles's well-articulated lust (for Alaska, the title girl) and his initial excitement about being on his own for the first time." Ages 14-up. (Jan.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Gr 9 Up
From the very first page, tension fills John Green's Michael L. Printz Award-winning novel (Dutton, 2005). Miles Halter, 16, is afraid that nobody will show up at his party because he doesn't have many friends. He loves to read biographies and discover the last words attributed to famous people. He's particularly intrigued with the dying words of poet Francois Rabelais: "I go to seek a great perhaps." Miles is leaving his loving Florida home for the "great perhaps" of the same Alabama boarding school attended by his father. Ominous chapter headings (40 days before, 10 days after) reveal that something tragic may happen. At school, Miles is accepted by a brainy group of pranksters led by his roommate and Alaska Young, a smart and sexy feminist. The teen becomes captivated by his new friends who spend as much energy on sex, smoking, drinking, and cutting-up as they do on reading, learning, and searching for life's meaning. As the school year progresses, Miles's crush on Alaska intensifies, even after it becomes evident that her troubled past sometimes causes her to be self-destructive. This novel is about real kids dealing with the pressures of growing up and feeling indestructible. Listeners will be riveted as the friends band together to deal with the catastrophic events that plague their junior year, and rejoice at their triumphs. Jeff Woodman clearly delineates the voices for each character in an age-appropriate, smart-alecky manner, injecting great emotion while managing not to be overly sentimental. This story belongs in all collections for older young adults, especially those who like Chris Crutcher, David Klass, and Terry Trueman.
—JoAnn CarhartCopyright 2006 ReedBusiness Information.

The Alaska of the title is a maddening, fascinating, vivid girl seen through the eyes of Pudge (Miles only to his parents), who meets Alaska at boarding school in Alabama. Pudge is a skinny ("irony" says his roommate, the Colonel, of the nickname) thoughtful kid who collects and memorizes famous people's last words. The Colonel, Takumi, Alaska and a Romanian girl named Lara are an utterly real gaggle of young persons, full of false starts, school pranks, moments of genuine exhilaration in learning and rather too many cigarettes and cheap bottles of wine. Their engine and center is Alaska, given to moodiness and crying jags but also full of spirit and energy, owner of a roomful of books she says she's going to spend her life reading. Her center is a woeful family tragedy, and when Alaska herself is lost, her friends find their own ways out of the labyrinth, in part by pulling a last, hilarious school prank in her name. What sings and soars in this gorgeously told tale is Green's mastery of language and the sweet, rough edges of Pudge's voice. Girls will cry and boys will find love, lust, loss and longing in Alaska's vanilla-and-cigarettes scent. (Fiction. YA)

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
 
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults, Top 10• An ALA Quick Pick• A Booklist Editors’ Choice selection• A Kirkus Best Book of the Year• An SLJ Best Book of the Year• A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best• A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

“What sets this novel apart is the brilliant, insightful, suffering but enduring voice of Miles Halter.” —Chicago Tribune
 
“Looking For Alaska is a showcase to the raw talent John Green has, the kind of talent that can make you close the crisp last page of a novel and come out as a different person....

A gem of modern literature." —Guardian 
 
★ “What sings and soars in this gorgeously told tale is Green’s mastery of language and the sweet, rough edges of Pudge’s voice.” —Kirkus

★ “Alive with sweet, self-deprecating humor.” —SLJ
 
“Funny, sad, inspiring, and always compelling.” —Bookpage
 
“The spirit of Holden Caulfield lives on.” —Kliatt 
 
“Stunning conclusion . . . one worthy of a book this good.” —Philadelphia Inquirer
 

Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter is bored, lonely, and unchallenged, so he decides to leave his family home in Florida for the Culver Creek boarding school in Alabama. There he finds his math-genius roommate, Chip, sometimes called the Colonel, and the sexy, vivacious, but already taken Alaska Young. Reader Jeff Woodman captures the angst of teen life, and the listener experiences the full range of emotions when a young life ends unexpectedly. This winner of the American Library Association Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature will inspire young people to ask the important questions in life and remind older readers just how important those questions are. R.O. 2007 Audies Award Finalist © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine