Looking for Alaska

Author: John Green
Publisher: 2006, Speak
Lexile Measure: 930L
Classification: Fiction

Summary:  
This novel, by perennial teen favorite John Green, tells of Miles Halter’s year at Culver Creek Boarding School, and the relationships he develops and loses with the other students and teachers, including his roommate, “the Colonel,” and Alaska Young, a beautiful, funny, and enigmatic girl who steals his heart before dying in a tragic accident and changing his life forever. 

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Language:
The protagonist, Miles, is a male teenager at boarding school.  His language, and that of the other characters, is pretty much what you would expect.  In other words, this book contains a lot of profanity.

Profanity includes:
Oh my God / Christ (pp. 7, 17, 18, 22, 28, 35, 43, 54, 60, 64)
bad*ss (pp. 7, 48)
a*s (pp.  8, 24, 84, 107)
a*shole (pp. 17, 23, 25, 40, 47, 84, 166, 170)
sh*t  (pp. 12, 13, 28, 45, 46, 54, 67, 70, 73, 78, 82, 93, 106, 110, 112, 113, 117, 157, 159, 164, 181, 185, 191)
f*ckup / f*ck / f*ck it / f*ckers (pp. 17, 36, 70, 71, 73, 82, 96, 99, 103, 104, 105, 108, 110, 120, 171)
d*ck (p. 110)
d*mn (pp. 43, 49, 51, 155)
g*dd*mn (pp. 28, 38, 145, 163, 170)
b*stard (pp. 28, 43, 66, 70)
p*ss / p*ssed (pp. 29, 31, 37, 46, 47, 110, 149, 156)
h*ll (pp. 47, 71, 166)
b*tch / b*tchy (pp. 31, 35, 65, 69, 96, 165, 168)

Drug and Alcohol Use:  
The book’s references to teenage drinking and smoking are too numerous to mention. The characters smoke throughout, drink repeatedly, and get drunk.

• Alaska dies while driving drunk. 
  
• The book also discusses Alaska’s use of fake ID to buy alcohol (pp. 80-81, 94-95).  
  
• While other students are home for Thanksgiving, Alaska and Miles raid their rooms and find hidden alcohol and drugs.  Miles is surprised at how much they find (pp. 86-87).
  
• The characters smoke marijuana, and the book discusses one character in particular, Hank, who “loves weed like Alaska loves sex” (pp. 46-47).  Later, the same character tells them that smoking marijuana is better for your health than smoking cigarettes (p. 52). 
  
• Although the drug and alcohol use is excessive, it is not gratuitous.  The teens’ drug and alcohol use is used to develop the characters and, in several cases, is essential to the story.  Examples are found on pp. 7, 14-17, 36-37, 42-43, 68, 175-182.
  

Violence and Crime:
The characters are also involved (as victims and perpetrators) in hazing and bullying.

• Before school starts, two boys break into Miles’ room, tape his legs together, and throw him in a lake (pp. 24-26). In one instance, Miles gets in a fight. 
  
• Although it was not a violent scene, the book contains a vivid description of Alaska, as a young girl, finding her mother on the floor after a seizure.  The little Alaska did not know what to do, so she did nothing, and her mother died (pp. 119-121).
  
• Alaska dies in a violent car wreck while driving drunk (pp. 137-141). 

Sexual Content:
Looking for Alaska is a teen coming of age story and includes all the sexual content you might expect.

• The characters discuss and engage in sexual intercourse, oral sex (including one scene in which Alaska teaches Miles and his new girlfriend how to do it), masturbation (p. 81), watch pornography (pp. 25, 85, 87), and discuss sex (example, p. 59).
• Alaska and Miles watch a pornographic movie together (p. 87), and Miles describes the movie while Alaska commented indignantly on how it objectified women and consisted of body parts and no love (pp. 87-88).
  
• Alaska discusses how her boyfriend is, “hung like a horse and a beautiful, sensual lover” (p. 62).
  
• Miles’s friend, the Colonel, breaks up with his girlfriend and discusses losing his virginity to her (p. 66).
  
• Miles, who is in love with Alaska, also describes her body and those of other girls (ex. pp. 17, 41, 59, 60, 84).  He discusses being, “four layers of clothes from doing it,” when riding with a girl in the car (p. 51). 
  
• Miles and his girlfriend share a sleeping bag and engage in petting (pp. 121-123). On another day, she offers him oral sex, but she does not know how to do it. They ask Alaska, and she shows them. (pp. 126-129)
  
• Two characters we never meet, Marya and Paul, were expelled for a “trifecta,” which involved lying naked in bed together, drunk, and smoking a joint (p. 23).
  
• Alaska, while playing video games, tells Miles that the hand eye coordination involved will come in handy when he gets to third base (p. 99).
  
• While playing truth or dare, Alaska dares Miles to hook up with her.  He describes the encounter (pp. 130-121).
  
• As a senior prank, the class hires a stripper posing as a lecturer.  In the middle of his presentation, he takes his clothes off (pp. 203-210).
  

Other:

• The book focuses on the teens’ search for the “great beyond.”  They discuss different religions in a comparative religion class, and Miles discusses the fact that he had not read the Bible even though he was a Christian (although he had only been to church four times) (see, pp. 69-70). 
  
• Also of note is that unlike many books about teens, the adults in Looking for Alaska are neither stupid, clueless, mean nor indifferent.  Although the book focuses on the teens, adults portrayed come across as caring.

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Other Helpful Reviews:

• Good Reads
  
• Common Sense Media
  
• BookPage