The week before I left my family and Florida and the rest of my minor life to go to boarding school in Alabama, my mother insisted on throwing me a going-away party. To say that I had low expectations would be to underestimate the matter dramatically.
Sixteen-year old Miles Halter attends public high school. He doesn't have any friends and his high school experience has been less than fun. He actually wants to go to boarding school. After learning about French poet François Rabelais's last words ("I go to seek a Great Perhaps."), Miles realizes that he doesn't have to die to start looking for his Great Perhaps. He decides to attend Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama.
Miles loves to read biographies of famous people and remembers their last words.
I thought of the people I'd read about - John F. Kennedy, James Joyce, Humphrey Bogart - who went to boarding school, and their adventures - Kennedy, for example, loved pranks. I thought of the Great Perhaps and the things that might happen and the people I might meet and who my roommate might be...
Miles's roommate is Chip Martin, aka the Colonel. The Colonel shows Miles the ins and outs of Culver Creek and gives Miles his nickname: Pudge. Then he takes Miles to meet Alaska in her room.
We walked in. I turned to close the door behind me, and the Colonel shook his head and said, "After seven, you have to leave the door open if you're in a girl's room," but I barely heard him because the hottest girl in all of human history was standing before me in cutoff jeans and a peach tank top.
And so Miles's Great Perhaps begins. Looking for Alaska is funny, shocking, and heart-breaking. I absolutely loved it!
Rating: 10 out of 10 stars
*language, sexual inference, sexual situations, smoking, drinking
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