250 pages or less
Worthwhile reads to fit busy student schedules

-- Kristin Johnson, Literary Critic

Student seeking “Great Perhaps” discovers forgiveness provides path
Fiction
looking for alaska
By: John Green
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 221 pages, hardcover $15.99, March 2005.
First Thoughts: A debut novel that explodes with strong first-person voice and distinct characterization. Though it has technically been labeled a young adult book, this novel will appeal to a wider audience.

I found looking for alaska in the “Discover Great New Writers” section of Barnes and Noble, and I would have to agree: This is a great new writer.

High school junior Miles Halter, nicknamed Pudge by his prep school roommate “the Colonel,” is embarking on a journey to discover the “Great Perhaps.” Pudge’s self-proclaimed most interesting characteristic is his love of famous last words and he quotes several interesting ones throughout the story. Last words driving the plot the most are those of François Rabelais: “I go to seek the Great Perhaps” and Simón Bolívar; “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?”

In seeking his “Great Perhaps,” Miles leaves home to attend the boarding school his father went to: Culver Creek, a school in Alabama similar to the real life school attended by the author. At the school, Miles lands with what he initially sees as the “wrong crowd.” But, in that crowd, he meets and falls in love with Alaska Young, an eccentric, strong-willed prankster who gets him in trouble but also challenges the core of his life’s philosophies.

Alaska, the only girl in their crowd of four (the fourth being an Asian boy named Takumi), challenges the boys to question how they are to survive this life. “You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”

This question of Alaska’s is pulled through the book in a final exam posed by the group’s religion teacher: “What is the most important question human beings must answer?”

In addition to this deep questioning of beliefs, the book contains its share of illicit drinking, sex, and cigarette smoking—the trifecta of offenses that can land one in trouble and possible expulsion from Culver Creek. It also encapsulates effective layers, including layers of self-reflection and, at times, more explicit counting of the layers of clothing that stand between Miles and the object of his obsession: Alaska Young, adding humor to the well-told tale. Unfortunately for Miles, Alaska has a boyfriend at another school and she professes devotion to him amid Miles’ persistent attention.

The book is sectioned into two: before and after, creating a suspenseful countdown for readers with chapter headings written like this: “fifty-two days before,” “forty-nine days before.” The event that occurs in between the two sections will change the students at Culver Creek forever and create a mystery that Miles and the Colonel can’t let go of and spend the “after” half of the book trying to solve. The mystery also brings Miles emotionally into the maze of seemingly endless suffering, referred to as the labyrinth earlier into the book. Once the mystery is solved, Miles not only answers the question posed by his professor in their final essay exam, but also the questions he set out to answer for himself regarding the “Great Perhaps.”

Sad, but reflective, and at times funny, this writer has created an amazing debut novel that will resonate with readers well after they finish looking for alaska.

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