Looking for Alaska

Green, J.  (2005).  Looking for Alaska.  New York, NY:  Dutton.  Miles decides he wants to go to a boarding school, Culver Creek, in Alabama because he wants something more.  There he meets his roommate Chip Martin (the Colonel) and Alaska.  Even though Alaska has a boyfriend, Miles cannot help falling for her.  She remains faithful to her boyfriend.  Throughout the book, Miles and his friends (the Colonel, Alaska, Takumi, and Lara) play pranks on the Weekend Warriors (rich kids who get to go home every weekend).  One the biggest one was when they added blue dye to their hair gel.  During Thanksgiving, Alaska convinces Miles to stay with her, but they ended up going to the Colonels house instead.  One night, the three of them get drunk and Miles kisses Alaska.  She gets a call from her boyfriend, she feels guilty, so she storms out.  The next morning Miles and the Colonel find out Alaska was crashes and dies.  They spend the several days, along with Lara and Takumi, trying to figure out if Alaska committed suicide or if it was simply an accident.  They come to realize that the day before was her mother’s death anniversary and she was on her way to place flowers on her grave.  Miles and his friends decide not to forget her, but to stop pursuing the reason why she dies.  I think this novel is good to keep in a high school library due to language and some of the topics, but I think some students might be able to connect to it.  I think students will like it also because you have a group of students living away from their parents and making some grown-up decisions like smoking and drinking.  This follows Havighurst’s theory of developmental tasks, Adolescents undergo changing relationships with parents.