Looking for Alaska
Looking for Alaska is a 2005 young adult novel by American author John Green. Based on his time at the private Indian Springs School, Green wrote the novel in order to create meaningful young adult fiction. While he drew from people and events in his life, the novel is fictional.
Looking for Alaska follows the novel's main character and narrator Miles Halter, or "Pudge," to boarding school. He seeks a "Great Perhaps," as in the famous last words of French writer François Rabelais. Throughout the 'Before' section of the novel, Miles and his friends Chip "The Colonel" Martin, Alaska Young, and Takumi Hikohito grow very close.
In the second half of the novel, Miles and his friends work to discover the missing details of the night Alaska died. While struggling to reconcile Alaska's death, Miles grapples with the last words of Simón Bolívar and the meaning of life. The novel never provides a conclusion to these topics.
Looking for Alaska explores themes of the search for meaning, grief, hope, and youth–adult relationships. The novel won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association. In 2015 it led the association's list of most-challenged books, with profanity and a sexually explicit scene identified as objectionable. Between 2010 and 2019, the ALA said that it was the fourth-most challenged book in the United States. Schools in Kentucky, Tennessee, and several other states have attempted to place bans on the book. PEN America's 2024 report on instances of book bans in public schools found a total of 97 bans of Looking for Alaska from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2024, making it the second most banned book in this timeframe – only 1 ban less than the most banned book, Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes, with 98 bans in total.
In 2005, Paramount Pictures received the rights to produce a film adaptation of Looking for Alaska; however, the film failed to reach production. More than a decade later, the novel was adapted as a television miniseries of the same name, which premiered as a Hulu Original on October 18, 2019.
Background
Looking for Alaska is based on John Green's early life. Growing up, Green always loved writing, but when it came to his middle school years, he classified his time as "pretty bleak". Green says that he was "unbearable" as a student to his parents and teachers; however, he always worked hard to fit in with his peers. Green's situation did not improve after his transition to high school, so he asked his parents if he could attend Indian Springs School, a private boarding school outside of Birmingham, Alabama. His parents agreed. He spent the remainder of his time in high school at Indian Springs School, where he formed valuable relationships with teachers. These have endured to today, he says.Green's experience at boarding school inspired him to write Looking for Alaska. He drew from people and incidents he knew, including the death of a classmate.
During a book talk at Rivermont Collegiate on October 19, 2006, Green shared that Takumi's "fox hat" in Looking for Alaska was based on a Filipino friend who wore a similar hat while playing pranks at the school. Green created the possessed swan in Culver Creek from a similar swan he remembered at Indian Springs. While Green has said that two pranks in the book are similar to ones that he pulled, the novel is fictional.
As a child, Green became infatuated with famous last words, specifically those of President John Adams. He also collected and studied last words by other notable people, such as Emily Dickinson, Oscar Wilde, and Simón Bolívar. Green's main character Miles is given a similar fascination. He holds Bolivar's last words to inspire a search for meaning in the face of unexplained death.
Plot
Miles Halter, a teenage boy obsessed with the last words of famous people, leaves his regular high school in Florida to attend Culver Creek Preparatory High School in Alabama for his junior year. Miles thinks about the change in the last words of writer François Rabelais: "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." Miles' new roommate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin, gives him the nickname "Pudge" and introduces the new boy to his friends: hip-hop MC Takumi Hikohito and Alaska Young, an intelligent, beautiful, and emotionally unstable girl. Learning of Pudge's obsession with famous last words, Alaska tells him that Simón Bolívar said: "Damn it. How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" The two make a deal that if Pudge figures out what the labyrinth is and how to escape it, Alaska will find him a girlfriend. Later, Alaska sets Pudge up with Lara, a Romanian classmate.Pudge and Lara have a disastrous date, but Alaska and Pudge grow closer, and he begins to fall in love with her. She insists on keeping their relationship platonic because she has a boyfriend at university.
On his first night at Culver Creek, Pudge is kidnapped, wrapped up and gagged with duct tape and thrown into a lake by the "Weekday Warriors," a group of rich schoolmates who blame the Colonel and his friends for the expulsion of their friend, Paul. Takumi claims that they are innocent because their friend Marya was also expelled during the incident. However, Alaska later admits to Miles that she had told on both Marya and Paul to the dean, Mr. Starnes, nicknamed "The Eagle", to save herself from being expelled.
The gang celebrates a successful series of pranks by drinking and partying, and an inebriated Alaska confides about her mother's death from an aneurysm when she was eight years old. Although she failed to understand it at the time, she feels guilty for not calling 911. Pudge figures that her mother's death made Alaska impulsive and rash. He concludes that the labyrinth was a person's suffering and that humans must try to find their way out. Afterward, Pudge grows closer to Lara, and they start dating. A week later, after another "celebration," an intoxicated Alaska and Pudge spend the night with each other. Soon, Alaska receives a phone call that causes her to be hysterical. Insisting that she has to leave, Alaska drives away while still drunk, and the Colonel and Pudge distract Mr. Starnes. They later learn that Alaska was driving under the influence and died.
The Colonel and Pudge are devastated, blame themselves, wonder about her reasons for undertaking the urgent drive, and even contemplate that she might have deliberately killed herself. The Colonel insists on questioning Jake, her boyfriend, but Pudge refuses, fearing that he might learn that Alaska never loved him. They argue, and the Colonel accuses Pudge of loving only an idealized Alaska he made up. Pudge realizes the truth and reconciles with the Colonel.
To celebrate Alaska's life, Pudge, the Colonel, Takumi, and Lara team up with the Weekday Warriors to hire a male stripper to speak at Culver's Speaker Day, a prank that Alaska had developed before her death. The whole school finds it hilarious; even Mr. Starnes acknowledges how clever it was. Pudge finds Alaska's copy of The General in His Labyrinth with the labyrinth quote underlined and notices the words "straight and fast" written in the margins. He remembers Alaska died on the morning after the anniversary of her mother's death and concludes that Alaska felt guilty for not visiting her mother's grave and, in her rush, might have been trying to reach the cemetery. On the last day of school, Takumi confesses in a note that he was the last person to see Alaska and let her go as well. Pudge realizes that letting her go no longer matters as much. He forgives Alaska for dying, as he knows Alaska forgives him for letting her go.
Style
Looking for Alaska is divided into two halves named 'Before' and 'After' as in before and after Alaska's death, and are narrated by main character Miles Halter. Rather than the typical numerical system, each chapter is denoted through the number of days before Alaska's death or the number of days after. The genesis of this structure resulted from John Green's influence of public reactions to the September 11 attacks.In an interview with Random House Publishing, Green recalled that newscasters stated that people would now view the world through the lens of either before or after 9/11. Green says in the same interview, “We look back to the most important moment in our history, and that becomes the dividing line between what we were and what we are now. So I wanted to reflect on the way we measure and think of time.” For the characters in Looking for Alaska, Alaska's death proved a life-altering moment, and Green wanted to reflect this importance by creating the structure of the novel around the axis of Alaska's death.
Genre
Looking for Alaska is classified as "young adult fiction". While Green used his own life as a source of inspiration, the novel itself is entirely fictional. In an interview with Random House Publishing, Green states that the intended audience for the novel is high-school students. In a separate interview, Green comments that he wrote the novel intending it to be young adult fiction because he wished to contribute to the formation of his readers’ values in a meaningful way. Furthermore, themes of sex, drugs, alcohol, first love, and loss classify the book as young adult fiction.Characters
; :Miles Halter is the novel's main character and narrator, who has an unusual passion in learning famous people's last words. He transfers to the boarding school Culver Creek in search of his own "Great Perhaps." He is nicknamed "Pudge" by his roommate because he is tall and skinny. Miles is attracted to Alaska Young, who mostly does not reciprocate his feelings. As seen through interactions with other characters, Miles can be categorized as independent and curious, but also unique.;:Alaska is a wild, unpredictable, beautiful, and enigmatic girl with a sad backstory who captures Miles' attention and heart. She acts as a confidante to her friends, frequently assisting them in personal matters, including providing them with cigarettes and alcohol. She is described as living in a "reckless world." After receiving an unknown call, Alaska dies in a car accident, and the second half of the novel focuses on uncovering the mystery from the night she died. At the end of the book, it is not confirmed whether her death was an accident or suicide.
; :Chip "The Colonel" Martin is five feet tall but "built like a scale model of Adonis". He is Alaska's best friend and Miles' roommate. He is the strategic mastermind behind the schemes that Alaska concocts and is in charge of everyone's nicknames. Coming from a poor background, he is obsessed with loyalty and honor, especially towards his beloved mother, Dolores, who lives in a trailer.
;:Takumi is a gifted Japanese MC and hip-hop enthusiast and friend of Alaska and Chip. He often feels overlooked in the plans of Miles, Chip, and Alaska. Towards the end of the novel he returns to Japan.
;:Lara is a Romanian immigrant who is Alaska's friend and becomes Miles' girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, and eventually girlfriend again. She is described as having a mild accent.
;:Mr. Starnes is the strict dean of students at Culver Creek, nicknamed "The Eagle" by the students. He is pranked by Miles, Chip, Alaska, Lara and Takumi multiple times throughout the novel.