Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska is the debut novel of popular author John Green. Largely autobiographical, it tells the story of Miles "Pudge" Halter as he goes to boarding school and meets a mysterious and elusive girl, for whom he falls hard and fast.

Teaser
" Before.  Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. He heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, 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, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same."

--from Goodreads

Characters

 * Miles Halter
 * Alaska Young
 * Lara Buterskaya
 * Takumi Hikohito
 * Chip Martin

Awards and Honors
Looking for Alaska won the Printz Award in 2006 and was the 2005 School Library Journal Best Book of the Year.

Bans and Challenges
Looking for Alaska has been challenged and banned on multiple occasions. Reasons cited are crude language and a scene depicting a blow job, which many parents believe are inappropriate content for adolescent readers.