Looking for Alaska

Green, J. (2005). Looking for Alaska. NY: Dutton.

Looking for Alaska is about a 16-year old boy named Miles Halter. Miles is not a very popular boy, doesn’t have many people he can call friends and loves to read. He is especially fascinated by the words fo poet Francois Rabelais, “I go to seek a great perhaps.” Miles lives by this quote as he himself is leaving his Florida home to attend an Alabama boarding school, which his father attended. At his new school, Miles becomes friends with a group of educated yet wild and reckless teenagers. One in particular is Alaska Young, a beautiful, unpredictable girl who still struggles with her past from time to time. Miles begins to fall in love with her and convinces himself that Alaska has fallen in love with him. Through out the story Miles experiences the likes of fast-pace living, drugs and sexual encounters. The lives of the characters although are a bit unbelievable considering this smart group of kids manages to live recklessly drinking and smoking while maintaining a good status at a prestigious school. In the end Alaska dies in a car accident, which they later discover was an act of suicide caused by the guilt she felt for not doing enough to save her mother from dying. I recommend this book to 16 year olds and up. It is a book that will strike the chord in many teens as they face the rawness of this world. Although as parents, we wish to shelter our children and keep their eyes from understanding the dangers of this world, inside we know that it is something they will soon discover in depth even as we did.