Looking for the Great Perhaps

Looking for Alaska is a young adult novel by John Green published in 2005. The book is divided into two chapters: Before and After.

Before:
It's tells about Miles, a regular young boy, who loves to read biographies and remember famous people's last words. He is obsessed with Francois Rabelais’s last words "I go to seek a Great Perhaps". Then he decides to leave his home in Florida to attend Culver Creek Preparatory High School in Alabama for his junior year to find a great perhaps.

 

After he gets there, he finds his roomate, Chip Martin, but he wants to be called "The Colonel", he came from a poor family. Colonel also makes a nickname for Miles, he calls him "Pudge". Not long after that Colonel introduces him to Alaska, a smart, beautiful, moody, and unpredictible girl who loves to smoke, and collect books. Colonel also introduces him to Takumi, a student of Japanese descent. They spend their time together, Alaska, Takumi, Pudge, and Colonel. But Pudge starts to like Alaska, and they even become closer when Pudge decides to spend the holidays with her. Alaska tells Pudge about Simon Bolivar's last word "Damn it. How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" Miles asks her what the labyrinth is and she tells him that's the mystery. They become closer and closer, but Alaska already has had a boyfriend. But then Alaska set up Pudge to date her friend, Lara, a Romanian immigrant girl.

One day, Colonel and Alaska make a great prank, and also a pre-prank. That was a crazy prank, where after that, they go to a barn, and spend their night there (Pudge, Alaska, Lara, Takumi, Colonel). They start to drink and smoke, and share the story about their best days in their life, alaska tells them the story of her mother. She says that her best day is the day where she goes to a zoo with her mother, end of the story. They are confuse, "That's it?". Then they share about their worst days ever. Alaska continues the story, it is the same day where she goes to the zoo, and when they go  home her mother suddenly falls dead because of aneurysm. She feels guilty for not calling 911. She doesn't understand what really happens. Everyone is shoked from hearing the story.

After spending their night in the barn, they go to the school in the morning. At the night, Colonel and Pudge come to Alaska's room, and they begin to play truth or dare. Alaska dares Pudge to hook her up. But then she stops it, because she is too tired, and sleepy. She whispers to him "to be continued"

After:
Dont guess, read the novel! It's really suprising, they said 'the after never be the same' and yes it is!

When I read the first part 'Before' I enjoyed it, but it wasn't attracting. It was flat, but when it came to the 'After' that was where everything became complicated. And that was unpredictible. Besides, there were also many critics about the book, because the book contains controversial content where the main characters are the teenagers who love smoking, drinking, and using explicit languages.

Quotes:
"I'm a bad boyfriend. She's a bad girlfriend. We deserve each other" Colonel

"how do you smoke so damn fast?" she looked at me and smile widely, "Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die"

"I may die young" she said. "But at least I die smart" -Alaska

"You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagine that future keeps going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present" Alaska

"How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?" Alaska

"Last words are harder to remember when no one knows that someone's about to die" Pudge

"Everyting that comes together fall apart. Everything. The chair im sitting on. It was built and it will fall apart. Im gonna fall apart. The cells and organs and systems that make you you. They came together, grew together, so must fall apart " Pudge