The book is written from the perspective of a boy called Miles who has never had any friends until he goes to the school. He is an only child. He likes to read autobiographies/biographies of famous people and find out their last words and memorise them. His Dad went to Culver Creek School and he decides to go there himself in order to find "the Great Perhaps."

He shares his room with Chip (a.k.a. the Colonel) who has already been there for a year and makes friends with him. The book revolves around the central character of Alaska Young who Miles falls in love with. Alaska is unpredictable and moody, fascinating and very different from anyone that Miles has ever met before. The first half of the book is building up to the main event and the second half is about how Miles and his friends come to terms with what happened.

Miles' parents are well off and he has no idea how poor the Colonel is until he and Alaska go home with him at Thanksgiving and discover that he lives in a caravan and has to sleep in a tent for his friends to sleep inside. The Colonel doesn't mind he just hates rich people.

The children at the school pull a lot of pranks. Miles' dad was famous for the pranks he did when he went there. The rich weekday boarders are hated by the kids that board full time. The weekly boarders flooded Alaska's room and lots of her books get ruined so she is very upset. In revenge Miles and his friends put blue dye in a couple of the boys' hair gel and their hair turns royal blue, so they have to shave it off and are not very happy.

It is a good book but younger children might find it harder to understand and put it down. I think that 13+ people would enjoy this book mostly girls but it might be good for some boys it would depend on what type of books they liked.

My first impressions of this book was that it is going to be hard to review but I have tried my best. It is a wonderful book. It is full of passionate emotions. It is happy and sad and romantic. The main character, Miles Halter is an all round fairly normal teenager. He has one rather weird hobby, collecting people's last words. Throughout the story he has his high points, like when he was staying with Alaska, Conoel and Colonel's mother for Thanks Giving, and his low points when he was at Culver Creek some weekday warriors bound him head to toe with duck tape and threw him in the lake. He leaves home and sets out to a boarding school, Culver Creek but before he goes his dad say, "No Sex, No Drink, No Fags, No Trouble!" As he arrives he finds out he will be sharing a room with Chip Martin a.k.a Colonel.

Throughout the book they become best mates and their friendship is as solid as a rock. That is one of the great things about this book. The friendships are solid and everlasting and even if they have an argument they always make up. When Colonel takes Miles (new nickname Pudge) to meet Alaska for the first time Pudge is pleasantly surprised. He thinks "Wow, she's fit, sexy and she's right next door" At Culver Creek there are two types of people. Weekday Warriors (people who are rich and go home at the weekend) and people who don't. Each of the two sides has a grudge against each other. One of the main parts of the story is how the two sides pull pranks on each other e.g. when the Weekday Warriors flooded Alaska's room or when Pudge and the gang put blue dye in the Weekday Warriors hair gel. This is one of the things that made me unable to put the book down. I loved the rapid description, vivid pictures kept popping up inside my head and as I turned from page to page it was almost like watching a movie switch from scene to scene.

As I started to finish the book I began to realise that it wasn't just happiness and romance there is deep dark despair. As anyone could probably tell you, you are going to be sad when a loved one dies. But no one was prepared for this death and when you know inside you could have stopped it, changed it, had an influence it beats you up inside real bad. The moment I started to read this book I fell in love with it. It's a beautiful story. Read it for yourself.