Rationale: Looking for Alaska
Green, J. (2005). Looking for Alaska. Dutton Books for Young Readers.
Age Range: 14 and up, Grade Range: Gr 10 and up
Summary
“‘I go to seek a Great Perhaps.’ That’s why I’m going. So I don’t have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.”
Before: Obsessed with the dying words of significant people, and inspired by the last words of the poet, Francois Rabelais, Miles Halter leaves home to attend Culver Creek, a boarding school near Birmingham, Alabama. He’s quickly renamed “Pudge” by his roommate, the “Colonel,” then meets and immediately falls for the titular Alaska, a charismatic, mischievous, and keenly intelligent, but troubled classmate. Pudge is adopted by the small but mighty band of not-the-rich-kids, comprised of the Colonel, Alaska, and another classmate, Takumi. He’s then pulled into an ongoing revenge prank war on night one when he’s duct taped and tossed in the lake by the rival rich kids. What ensues is a semester of bonding over zany antics, smoking and drinking, pondering the great questions—including the dying words of Simon Bolivar, “Damnit! How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?”—and a growing pull between Pudge and Alaska, despite the fact that she’s “in love with her boyfriend.” One drunken night, Pudge and Alaska finally make out, Alaska promises “to be continued,” before taking a late-night call, becoming upset, and driving away.
After: Alaska is killed that night when she drives her car full speed into a police car parked in the middle of the highway at the scene of a jack-knifed truck. It’s not determined whether or not Alaska did this on purpose or not. Pudge and the Colonel spend the rest of the school year working to understand and cope with the loss, and trying to solve the mystery—did Alaska commit suicide that night? They don’t get a real answer to this, but along the way of searching, they grapple with their grief, guilt over the roles they feel they played in her death, and the dawning realization that she had been in much more pain than they had realized, due to her guilt over how her had mother died. But whether it was intentional or not, she had found her way out of the “labyrinth of suffering.” Pudge also has to come to terms with the fact that his romanticization of her blinded him to the reality of her. Before the school year breaks for summer, though, the crew is able to pull off one, final, epic, for the history books prank that was Alaska’s brainchild and dedicated—loudly, by the male stripper hired for the occasion—to her at the Speaker Day assembly. The novel closes with Pudge contemplating the ‘labyrinth' and all that was Alaska in his final essay for religious studies.
Value
Alaska holds a great deal of value for teens in its examination of relationships and how we perceive ourselves and others, particularly those for whom we feel intense romantic feelings. It also examines suffering, suicide, and death. Green manages to look at these impossibly difficult topics in a way that is true to the realities of being a teenager and without losing youthful playfulness and hilarity. This is not an easy task, but it’s a hallmark of all of his work, and the ability to hold joy and a zeal for life without succumbing to the urge to run away is also a deeply important lesson for us all.
Potential Problems
Potentially objectionable content includes “inappropriate language,” smoking and drinking, rule-breaking, making out, drunk driving, suicide, and a sexually explicit scene depicting awkward first oral sex between Miles and Lara, which is the most frequent trigger for the book being challenged.
Alaska was the number one most frequently challenged book in the United States in 2015 (ALA) and has been on and off the ALA’s Top Ten most challenged lists since then, including taking the number four spot of the decade from 2010-2019 and was sixth most frequently challenged in 2024. (ALA)
Recent censorship of the book, according to PEN’s 2023-24 School Book Ban Index, include bans from entire school districts by administrations in dozens of districts, in twelve different states—the majority being located in Iowa*, and including one district in California.
Nathalie op de Beeck of Publisher’s Weekly reported this week (4/29/25) on the Florida lawsuit in which Green is one of the plaintiffs:
“On April 29, in response to an April 1 request for summary judgment by Florida attorney general James Uthmeier and his legal team, the plaintiffs in Penguin Random House LLC v. Gibson urged Florida district court judge Carlos E. Mendoza to make his determination in a case targeting the improper removal of books from public school classrooms and libraries. Critics argue that the law violates the First Amendment, fails to acknowledge the expertise of librarians and educators who select books and materials, and enables unconstitutional prohibitions on school materials that are alleged to be ‘pornographic’ or ‘harmful to minors.’”
*A Note on the Iowa bans: these are largely actions taken under Iowa’s new book banning legislation contained within SF 496, a large education bill signed into law in 2023. This is the law that triggered the suit brought by Penguin Random House and four of its censored authors, including John Green, as well as an Iowa high school student, three Iowa educators and the state’s largest teacher’s union, the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA). In a March 2025 piece in Little Village, an independent Iowan magazine, Paul Brennan reports on U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Locher’s new injunction halting the state’s book ban:
“Plaintiffs have established, at minimum, several dozen unconstitutional applications of Senate File 496 involving books that have undeniable political, artistic, literary, and/or scientific value,” he wrote. “This includes books that are: (a) historical classics like As I Lay Dying, Ulysses, Brave New World, 1984, Native Son, and Slaughterhouse-Five; (b) modern award winners or highly acclaimed books like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Song of Solomon, Beloved, The Bluest Eye, The Kite Runner, Nineteen Minutes, Speak, Shout, Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club, many of which address bullying, racism, sexual assault, or other forms of trauma and grief; (c) found on the Advanced Placement exam or otherwise serve important educational purposes like The Color Purple, Native Son, The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Reviews
“The Alaska of the title is a maddening, fascinating, vivid girl seen through the eyes of Pudge (Miles only to his parents), who meets Alaska at boarding school in Alabama. Pudge is a skinny (“irony” says his roommate, the Colonel, of the nickname) thoughtful kid who collects and memorizes famous people’s last words. The Colonel, Takumi, Alaska and a Romanian girl named Lara are an utterly real gaggle of young persons, full of false starts, school pranks, moments of genuine exhilaration in learning and rather too many cigarettes and cheap bottles of wine. Their engine and center is Alaska, given to moodiness and crying jags but also full of spirit and energy, owner of a roomful of books she says she’s going to spend her life reading. Her center is a woeful family tragedy, and when Alaska herself is lost, her friends find their own ways out of the labyrinth, in part by pulling a last, hilarious school prank in her name. 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
“This ambitious first novel introduces 16-year-old Miles Halter, whose hobby is memorizing famous people's last words. When he chucks his boring existence in Florida to begin this chronicle of his first year at an Alabama boarding school, he recalls the poet Rabelais on his deathbed who said, "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." Miles's roommate, the "Colonel," has an interest in drinking and elaborate pranks--pursuits shared by his best friend, Alaska, a bookworm who is also "the hottest girl in all of human history." Alaska has a boyfriend at Vanderbilt, but Miles falls in love with her anyway. Other than her occasional hollow, feminist diatribes, Alaska is mostly male fantasy--a curvy babe who loves sex and can drink guys under the table. Readers may pick up on clues that she is also doomed. Green replaces conventional chapter headings with a foreboding countdown--"ninety-eight days before," "fifty days before"--and Alaska foreshadows her own death twice ("I may die young," she says, "but at least I'll die smart"). After Alaska drives drunk and plows into a police car, Miles and the Colonel puzzle over whether or not she killed herself. Theological questions from their religion class add some introspective gloss. But the novel's chief appeal lies in Miles's well-articulated lust and his initial excitement about being on his own for the first time. Readers will only hope that this is not the last word from this promising new author. Ages 14-up. “ —Publishers Weekly
“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 straggle 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.” —SLJ
Awards
Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award
A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist
Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader's Choice Award
Abraham Lincoln High School Book Award
Eliot Rosewater Indiana High School Book Award
Iowa High School Book Award
Garden State Teen Book Award
Volunteer State Book Award
Vermont Green Mountain Book Award
2006 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection
NPR 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels Selection
TIME Magazine, 100 Best YA Books of All Time
For a full list of awards, click here.
Alternate Titles
Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram
Paper Towns by John Green
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Tools for finding more titles:
Literature Map - The Tourist Map of Literature
Additional Resources
An Educator’s Guide to the Works of John Green
Looking for Alaska FAQ — John Green
Looking for Alaska - Unite Against Book Bans - Book Résumés
“I left the note on the top bunk and sat down at the computer, and I wrote my way out of the labyrinth . . . “ — John Green, Looking for Alaska (2005)