Looking for Alaska

Miles "Pudge" Halter is abandoning his safe-okay, boring-life. Fascinated by the last words of famous people, Pudge leaves for boarding school to seek what a dying Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps."
Pudge becomes encircled by friends whose lives are everything but safe and boring. Their nucleus is razor-sharp, sexy, and self-destructive Alaska, who has perfected the arts of pranking and evading school rules. Pudge falls impossibly in love. When tragedy strikes the close-knit group, it is only in coming face-to-face with death that Pudge discovers the value of living and loving unconditionally.
John Green's stunning debut marks the arrival of a stand-out new voice in young adult fiction.

Publishers Weekly

Teenager Miles chronicles his first year at boarding school. According to PW, "The novel's chief appeal lies in Miles's well-articulated lust (for Alaska, the title girl) and his initial excitement about being on his own for the first time." Ages 14-up. (Jan.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

John Green attended a boarding school in Alabama not unlike Alaska's Culver Creek. After graduating from college in 2000, he worked as a chaplain at a children's hospital. His experiences with patients and their families during intense crises solidified his desire to write for teens and inspired him to bring his comic sensibility to a candid novel about the excitement of breaking the rules and the challenge of confronting loss. John now writes for several national magazines, both print and Web-based. He is also a commentator for National Public Radio's afternoon newsmagazine, All Things Considered, and Chicago's NPR affiliate, WBEZ. This is his first novel.