Looking for Alaska by John Green (2006, Paperback, Reprint)

Synopsis
Close friendships, hilarious pranks, and illicit smoking await scrawny, nerdy high-school junior Miles Halter when he goes away to Culver Creek, an Alabama boarding school. Immediately nicknamed Pudge by his roommate--a small, well-muscled scholarship student called the Colonel--Miles becomes a part of a tightly-knit group of pranksters headed by a sensual, opinionated, cigarette-smoking, booze-swilling girl named Alaska. Miles is intrigued by her, half in love, and desperate to discover the truth behind her mysterious mood swings and wild behavior. Each character in this sensitive, funny, and sad young-adult novel struggles with the agonies of being a teenager, perfectly stated in Alaska's own Religion term paper question: "How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?" Winner of the prestigious 2006 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.

Key Details
Author:	John Green
Language:	English
Publisher:	Speak
Format:	Paperback
ISBN-10:	0142402516
ISBN-13:	9780142402511

Additional Details
Edition Description:	Reprint

Size
Length:	221 pages
Thickness:	0.5 in
Weight:	8.8 oz

Publisher's Note
Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash.

Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash. An ALA Best Book for Young Adults & ALA Quick Pick. Reprint.

Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award

An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

An ALA Quick Pick

A Los Angeles Times 2005 Book Prize Finalist

A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

A 2005 Booklist EditorÂ's Choice

A 2005 School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

Before. Miles �Pudge� Halter is done with his safe life at home. His whole life has been one big non-event, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave �the Great Perhaps� even more (François Rabelais, poet). He heads off to the sometimes crazy and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young. She is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart. Then. . . . After. Nothing is ever the same.

Industry Reviews
"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."
Kirkus Reviews (03/01/2005)

"Green gives the time-tested plot of boarding-school maturation its full and considerable due, evoking the substantial appeal of the situation's hothouse intensity, heady independence, and endless possibilities."
Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (02/01/2005)