de John Green
NOW A HULU LIMITED SERIES!
The award-winning, genre-defining debut from John Green, the #1 bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down and The Fault in Our Stars
Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award • A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist • A New York Times Bestseller • A USA Today Bestseller • NPR’s Top Ten Best-Ever Teen Novels • TIME magazine’s 100 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time • A PBS Great American Read Selection • Millions of copies sold!
First drink. First prank. First friend. First love.
Last words.
Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.
Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked #1 bestselling author John Green’s arrival as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction.
NOW A HULU LIMITED SERIES!
The award-winning, genre-defining debut from John Green, the #1 bestselling author of Turtles All the Way Down and The Fault in Our Stars
Winner of the Michael L. Printz Award • A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist • A New York Times Bestseller • A USA Today Bestseller • NPR’s Top Ten Best-Ever Teen Novels • TIME magazine’s 100 Best Young Adult Novels of All Time • A PBS Great American Read Selection • Millions of copies sold!
First drink. First prank. First friend. First love.
Last words.
Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words—and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet François Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young, who will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.
Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another. A modern classic, this stunning debut marked #1 bestselling author John Green’s arrival as a groundbreaking new voice in contemporary fiction.
Critiques-
-
Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter is bored, lonely, and unchallenged, so he decides to leave his family home in Florida for the Culver Creek boarding school in Alabama. There he finds his math-genius roommate, Chip, sometimes called the Colonel, and the sexy, vivacious, but already taken Alaska Young. Reader Jeff Woodman captures the angst of teen life, and the listener experiences the full range of emotions when a young life ends unexpectedly. This winner of the American Library Association Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature will inspire young people to ask the important questions in life and remind older readers just how important those questions are. R.O. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
-
February 7, 2005
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. -
Narrator Wil Wheaton treats John Green's characters with the respect they deserve in this new audio edition of the 2006 Printz Award-winning novel. Bored, 16-year-old Miles Halter leaves his family home in Florida for boarding school in Alabama, seeking "the great perhaps." He finds a circle of precocious, prank-loving friends, including his intense roommate Chip (a.k.a. "the Colonel") and the moody, enigmatic dream girl, Alaska, with whom Miles becomes instantly obsessed. Each character shines in Wheaton's portrayal--from the deadpan Miles to the gruffly wise religion teacher to shy Romanian immigrant Lara to Alaska herself, with her brash, larger-than-life vivacity. The dialogue crackles with snark and aching earnestness as the characters struggle to cope with life before and after a terrible tragedy. S.C. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
-
November 13, 2006
Green's young adult novel debut won him many admirers in its 2005 print incarnation, and that success is likely to be repeated with this admirable audio version—impeccably read by Jeff Woodman, a veteran actor with more than 200 audiobooks to his credit as well as lots of stage and television work. Woodman is especially good at quickly bringing to life three very different characters: Miles, a 16-year-old from a safe, middle-class Florida home; his new boarding school roommate, the angry, brilliant Chip, a scholarship student from a poor family; and most intriguing of all, the beautiful Alaska Young, a smart and funny breaker of hearts who carries some psychic scars of her own. Thanks to Woodman's skill at subtly capturing the energy, hopes and pain of these young people without resorting to vocal gimmicks, Green's insights into the impact they have on each other come across with full artistic strength. Ages 12-up.
