Miles Halter leaves home to attend a boarding school called Culver Creek where he befriends Chip "The Colonel" Martin, Takumi Hikohito, and Alaska Young. Alaska remains mysterious but develops a close friendship with Miles. The group plays pranks on rival students. During a party, Alaska reveals her mother died when she was young, which left her impulsive. Miles concludes this was her "labyrinth" or suffering. Tragically, Alaska later dies under mysterious circumstances.

1. LOOKING FOR
ALASKA
E M I L I A A N D R A D E

2. CHARACTERS:
• Miles Halter
• Miles wants his Great Perhaps, but we never really know what he envisions as his Great Perhaps and whether the boarding
school of Culver Creek lives up to his expectations. Keep in mind, he's a jun...
• Alaska Young
• Alaska remains a perpetual mystery in this book, both to Miles and to us as readers. She's also the most complex character,
though her life ends in tragedy. So it's fitting that the last words Alas...
• Chip "The Colonel" Martin
• The Colonel is aptly named: although he's short and stocky, he's got a gift for leading others and a charisma that brings the
entire social network at the Creek together at the end of the book.Poor...
• Takumi Hikohito
• Even though he isn't in every scene of the book, Takumi plays a pretty important role in Miles's life and in Alaska's death,
though we don't find out about his participation in letting her go until...
• Lara Buterskaya
• Lara is a cutie, though unfortunately for her she doesn't compare to Alaska in Miles's mind. From Romania and with a cute
accent to boot, Lara likes likes Miles. Alaska notices this when Lara tries...
• Minor Characters
• Dolores MartinDolores, the Colonel's mom, never really had an easy life (raising a kid with a deadbeat will do that to a life),
but that doesn't stop her from being one of the more optimistic chara...

3. •Looking for Alaska is John Green's first novel, published in March 2005 by
Dutton Juvenile. It won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library
Association.During the week of July 29, 2012, Looking for Alaska broke into the New
York Times best seller list at number ten in Children's Paperback, 385 weeks (more
than seven years) after it was released.

4. SYNOPSIS
• Miles Halter leaves his home in Florida to attend Culver Creek Preparatory High School in Alabama for his junior year. He uses
François Rabelais’s last words—"I go to seek a Great Perhaps"—as his argument for choosing boarding school at such a late age.
Miles is fond of reading biographies, and particularly of memorizing the last words of famous people.
• Soon after arriving at Culver Creek, Miles meets his roommate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin. The Colonel nicknames Miles "Pudge",
due to Miles's slender physical appearance. He then introduces Pudge to his friends Takumi Hikohito and Alaska Young. Takumi is a
gifted emcee/hip-hop enthusiast, and Alaska Young is a beautiful, but emotionally unstable, girl. After hearing Pudge's obsessions
with famous last words, Alaska informs him of Simón Bolívar's final words: "Damn it. How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" Miles
asks her what the labyrinth is and the two make a deal: if Pudge figures out what the labyrinth is, Alaska will find him a girlfriend.
• On his first night at Culver Creek, Pudge is kidnapped and thrown into a nearby lake by the Weekday Warriors, a group of rich
Birmingham-area students who attend Culver Creek. The Colonel, Alaska, and Takumi explain that the Weekday Warriors hate them
because they blame the Colonel and his friends for the expulsion of their friend Paul. However, Takumi insists that they are innocent
because their friend Marya was also expelled with Paul. Later, Alaska admits that she told on Marya and Paul to the dean of the
school, Mr. Starnes, to save herself from being punished. Alaska sets Pudge up with a Romanian classmate, Lara. Unfortunately,
Pudge and Lara have a disastrous date, which ends with Pudge having a mild concussion and throwing up on Lara's pants. Alaska
and Pudge grow closer and he begins to fall in love with her, although she insists on keeping their relationship platonic.
• The Colonel and Alaska decide to pull a series of pranks in a row to intimidate the Warriors. They set off a series of firecrackers near
Mr. Starnes' house, which causes him to leave the building to investigate the noise. Then, Alaska and the Colonel sneak inside and
use Mr. Starnes' computer to send out fake progress reports to the Warriors’ parents. Finally, Lara puts blue hair dye in the Warrior's
shampoo and hair gel. The gang celebrates their victory by drinking and partying at the old barn by the school. While inebriated,
Alaska tells her friends about her mother's death from an aneurysm when she was eight years old. She admits that she still feels
guilty for not calling 911, even though she did not understand what was happening at the time. Pudge figures that her mother's death
made Alaska impulsive and rash. He concludes that the labyrinth was a person's suffering and that humans must try to find their way
out.

5. BACKGROUND
• Green attended Indian Springs School, a boarding and day school outside of Birmingham,
Alabama. During the time he was a student there, a student died under circumstances similar to
the character of Alaska
• John Green discussed at a book talk in Rivermont Collegiate on October 19, 2006 that he got
the idea of Takumi's "fox hat" from a Filipino friend who wore a similar hat while playing pranks at
Indian Springs School. From the same book talk, Green also stated that the "possessed" swan
in Culver Creek came from his student life at Indian Springs School as well, where there was
also a swan of similar nature on the campus. The two pranks that occur in the book are similar to
pranks that Green pulled at his high school. Green has also stated that several of Culver Creek's
teachers are direct caricatures of multiple faculty members at Indian Springs.

6. FILM ADAPTATION
• The film rights to the novel were acquired by Paramount Pictures in 2005. The screenplay
was potentially going to be written and directed by Josh Schwartz (creator of The O.C.) but
due to a lack of interest by Paramount, the production had been shelved indefinitely. It has
been reported that Paramount is putting the screenplay in review due to the success of the
film adaptation of Green's breakout novel, The Fault in Our Stars. On February 27, 2015,
The Hollywood Reporter announced that Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, including
Wyck Godfrey and Marty Bowen under their production banner Temple Hill Entertainment,
the same screenwriters and producers for the The Fault in Our Stars and Paper Towns
adaptations, would once again be writing the screenplay and producing for the film.
Paramount was actively casting the latest version of the screenplay, which was written by
Sarah Polley. Rebecca Thomas is set to direct Green also confirmed that Neustadter and
Weber are still involved with the film.In August 2015, it was announced filming would begin
in the fall in MichigIt was later announced that filming would begin in early 2016 because of
lack of casting decisions.

7. THE END