Looking for Alaska

Cover Credit: Google Images

Looking for Alaska
John Green
221 pages

Miles Halter is the average teenage kid, except for the fact that he has an obsession with famous last words. In the hopes for some adventure, he enrolls at the Culver Creek Boarding School in Alabama. But on top of getting some ridiculous adventure, Miles gets Alaska Young, a sexy, daring, and self-destructive kind of girl. Together, they search for the answer to the question: How do we get out of the labyrinth of suffering?

Told in first person, John Green creates Miles to tell the honest to God truth. Miles speaks to you in a way so righteous, so raw, straight down to the explicit language he uses. Looking for Alaska follows the average teenage plot: you crush on a girl, you get in a little trouble, and then something doesn't go as planned.

The theme most pronounced throughout the novel is the question above.  How do we make our way through the labyrinth of life, without encountering all of that suffering? All those wrong turns? The dead ends? Miles tackles the true problem though, how do we continue with life, after our suffering knocks us down? What is worth standing back up for?

I know those are a lot of questions for one young adult book to answer, but isn't that why we read? I know I read to find answers. Answers that connect the fictious worlds I love to the one I wake up to everyday. Answers that describe who we are as people, and what our purpose is.

John Green seems to tackle the most difficult questions in each of his novels, and somehow creates answers that spark further throught. Looking for Alaska will have you laughing, tearing up and pondering Miles in his quest for life's meaning.

Looking for Alaska is a Michael L. Printz Award Winner.