Once I had started the book, “Looking For Alaska,” I became unable to put it down. It is by far the best book that I ever read. But because of my love for this book, grew hatred when I was done. You cannot have a light without a dark, and that is what this book is about.
Miles, or “Pudge,” as he is referred to in the book, starts out as your average fifteen year old boy, obsessed with dead peoples last words realizes that he doesn’t want to just live in the gray. “I go to seek a great perhaps,” dying words from a true poet named Francois Rabelais. Miles decides to head off to boarding school, to seek his great perhaps. And oh boy, he finds his great perhaps. Miles arrives at school, and immediately makes friends with his roommate, not over five feet tall, named the colonel. But the one person that most of Miles life revolves around at Culver Creek School, is a spontaneous, beautiful, amazing girl named Alaska young. Alaska becomes his guide into a great perhaps. At the same time, Alaska steals his heart.
Alaska, being the amazingly bright person that she is, introduces Miles to many things like literature and and quotes. But mostly booze and ciggarettes. She showed him a new quote that she revolves most of what she does around, simon bolivars dying words, "How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?" And Pudge surly thinks about that and in the end, the answer is straight, and fast. Miles and his crew gets busted on campus for smoking, drinking in the dorm rooms, honestly the type of things that you would expect from a group of rag-tag early teens. At one point in the book, Miles admits that the day they pulled a prank on the head master, with all of his first true friends, was the best day of his life. And in that moment, he realizes that he has found his great perhaps.
Suddenly Alaska steals away something that will always be locked up inside Miles Halter for the rest of his life. Careless decisions end tragically, and something inside Miles snaps. Alaska blows out the flickering candle of life inside Miles that can never glow again by any normal flame. A promise that she abruptly disentigrated. So they decide to pull the best prank of all Culver Creek history. They pull the prank in honor, and in memory.