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Looking For Alaska (Printz Award Winner)
 
 
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Looking For Alaska (Printz Award Winner) (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "THE WEEK BEFORE I left my family and Florida and the rest of my minor life to go to boarding school in Alabama, my mother..." (more)
Key Phrases: Culver Creek, Great Perhaps, Weekday Warriors (more...)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (122 customer reviews)

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Looking For Alaska (Printz Award Winner) + An Abundance of Katherines + Paper Towns
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  • This item: Looking For Alaska (Printz Award Winner) by John Green

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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up - Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter's adolescence has been one long nonevent - no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps," he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student with a Napoleon complex who lives to one-up the school's rich preppies. Chip's best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every other male in her orbit falls instantly in love. She is literate, articulate, and beautiful, and she exhibits a reckless combination of adventurous and self-destructive behavior. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks. Alaska's story unfolds in all-night bull sessions, and the depth of her unhappiness becomes obvious. Green's dialogue is crisp, especially between Miles and Chip. His descriptions and Miles's inner monologues can be philosophically dense, but are well within the comprehension of sensitive teen readers. The chapters of the novel are headed by a number of days "before" and "after" what readers surmise is Alaska's suicide. These placeholders sustain the mood of possibility and foreboding, and the story moves methodically to its ambiguous climax. The language and sexual situations are aptly and realistically drawn, but sophisticated in nature. Miles's narration is alive with sweet, self-deprecating humor, and his obvious struggle to tell the story truthfully adds to his believability. Like Phineas in John Knowles's A Separate Peace(S & S, 1960), Green draws Alaska so lovingly, in self-loathing darkness as well as energetic light, that readers mourn her loss along with her friends. - Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Review

Readers will only hope that this is not the last word from this promising new author. -- Publishers Weekly

Product Details

  • Reading level: Young Adult
  • Hardcover: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Dutton Juvenile; First Edition edition (March 3, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0525475060
  • ISBN-13: 978-0525475064
  • Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (122 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,047 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

    #9 in  Books > Teens > Social Issues > Drug Use & Abuse > Fiction
    #13 in  Books > Children's Books > People & Places > Social Issues > Death & Dying > Fiction
    #38 in  Books > Teens > Social Issues > Dating & Intimacy > Fiction

More About the Author

John Green
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
THE WEEK BEFORE I left my family and Florida and the rest of my minor life to go to boarding school in Alabama, my mother insisted on throwing me a going-away party. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Culver Creek, Great Perhaps, Weekday Warriors, Vine Station, William Morse, Madame O'Malley, Speaker Day, Barn Night, Look of Doom, Strawberry Hill, Coosa Liquors, Miles Halter, Mountain Dew, Blue Citrus, Longwell Chase, Clay Wurtzel, Hank Walsten, Holly Moser, Marlboro Lights, New Hope
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Front Cover | Front Flap | First Pages | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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Looking For Alaska (Printz Award Winner)
83% buy the item featured on this page:
Looking For Alaska (Printz Award Winner) 4.4 out of 5 stars (122)
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122 Reviews
5 star:
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4 star:
 (22)
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2 star:
 (6)
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (122 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
34 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant YA debut with an authentic voice about life lessons in a boarding school, March 3, 2006
Green's debut YA novel follows a year in the life of high school junior Miles Halter, a friendless Floridian who begged his parents to enroll him in the Culver Creek boarding school. Miles dreams of starting anew at his elite Alabama prep school, of finding Francois Rabelais's "The Great Perhaps." At school, he falls in with a prankster of a roommate, the Colonel, and the sassy, sexy, messed-up Alaska Young. For an unforgettable 128 days, Miles learns life lessons in love, loyalty, friendship, literature, and poetry, as well as experiences the thrill of a first girlfriend. When tragedy strikes Culver Creek, Miles is forced to undertake an even closer examination of his own character and relationship with his friends.

This is an outstanding coming-of-age novel that has already proved to be a favorite teen read. It doesn't resort to a cop out of a "happily ever after" ending, but the characters each seek closure on their own terms. The characters are well-drawn, witty, and full of individual quirks and spunk. Green even manages to bring in the reality of cigarettes and alcohol without a preachy or over-glorifying tone. This novel has won the Teen's Top 10 award as well as the Printz Award, and Green is well on his way to YA superstardom. I'm looking forward to his next novel.
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31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Don't do what I did..., March 30, 2005
By Richard Hurley (Grass Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
...and read this book in one sitting. Okay, it's short and incredibly good, which makes it easy to bolt down. But then you are going to feel like an idiot for not savoring the pleasure, and you're going to be bleary as hell the next day (if you finish it at 4 in the morning, like I did).

This book deals with the Big Ones: suffering, loss, and grief, but it does so with such compassion and humor that the net impact is uplifting. Even the principal turns out to be a human being. There are no cardboard cut-out characters here.

Be aware that the kids in this story do what kids actually do (smoke, drink, and have sex). If that bothers you, read it anyway. There are more important things in life than observing proprieties and pretending that bright kids aren't exploratory. You don't have to approve of these characters. It is enough to love them and learn from them.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Senior Perspective, March 25, 2005
By S. A. Titone "Sam" (Birmingham, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Somewhere between searching for the secret to winning at Texas Holdem in Doyle Brunson's SUPER SYSTEM II, A COURSE IN POWER POKER, and envying a 101 year old lady boat captain in Jimmy Buffett's A SALTY PIECE OF LAND, I found John Green's Young Adult Novel, LOOKING FOR ALASKA.

I kept looking at the alluring cover of ALASKA on my night stand and decided that POWER POKER could wait and rushed through A SALTY PIECE.

If you have a child going to boarding school soon, goes there now or has gone there, as my son did, you must read LOOKING FOR ALASKA. If you want to understand the loneliness, happiness, mischief, joy, sorrow, sadness and a few other emotions of a teenager, you must read LOOKING FOR ALASKA. If you are convinced your teenager will not mature until much later, you better not read ALASKA. If you are concerned about the experiences that your teenager might have, do not read ALASKA. If you are a teenager, read this book!

Need help with a pair of Aces? Simple - see Doyle. Got Margaritaville on your mind? No problem - Jimmy is your man. But if you want to come of age with an extraordinarily endearing group of kids, read this book.

My son tells me it is being touted as Young Adult Fiction. I don't know about that. I can only tell you that at 64, I am a younger man for having read it.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars looking for alaska =best book ever!
This book is about a group of friends that attend Culver Creek, a boarding school in Alabama, The group consists of Pudge, (narrarator)The Colonial,Alaska, and Tukamie. Read more
Published 7 days ago by student

3.0 out of 5 stars Looking for UMKC
Looking for Alaska is a modern coming of age, young adult novel. The novel follows the changing life of a dull Florida teenager, Miles, in his new and very eventful boarding... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Looking for UMKC

2.0 out of 5 stars Unbearable
I've been hearing about this novel for years but had just recently purchased it at the bookstore because I was running out of things to read. Read more
Published 9 days ago by rantboi

4.0 out of 5 stars Looking for smart, real, literary? Look no more.
I read this book for a reading group "Not just for Kids" at a local bookstore--the group is composed of adults and the reads are YA titles. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Karen Ferrero

4.0 out of 5 stars Printz Award winner
I love John Green. For me he is one of a very few male YA authors whose writing I really enjoy. His nerd-boy perspective on the world is fresh and interesting. Read more
Published 1 month ago by T

4.0 out of 5 stars Discussion-worthy YA Novel
The narrator of this book, is someone who I would have envied if I was reading this as a teenager, and I suspect that many teen readers do envy Miles Halter. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Alissa

4.0 out of 5 stars Depressing but full of excellent ideas
The characters are what drew me into this book so much. It wasn't so much what happened in the book but how the character's reacted to everything. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Alex Heikes

4.0 out of 5 stars And Another Book Read Reviews
Miles Halter is tired of his loner life and boring school in Florida. The only thing he finds comfort in is reading famous people's biographies and learning their last words. Read more
Published 3 months ago by And Another Book Read

3.0 out of 5 stars OK But Not As Amazing As Everyone Seems To Say
Story Overview

Miles Halter -- for all intents and purposes -- is a bit of a social misfit. He has few friends -- much to the chagrin of his doting parents. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jenners

5.0 out of 5 stars Great first experience with John Green
(4.5 stars)

This book follows Miles Halter's life as he goes off to boarding school where he meets an interesting cast of characters. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Lisa P.

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