Is there an audiobook of Looking for Alaska?

Yes. Looking for Alaska has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Wil Wheaton.

How long is the Looking for Alaska audiobook?

The Looking for Alaska audiobook runs 6 hr 40 min.

Is Looking for Alaska on Kindle Unlimited?

No. Looking for Alaska was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 11, 2026.

Looking for Alaska by John Green book cover for the Book of the Day young adult book review

Our score

4.3/ 5

Excellent

Listen to Looking for Alaska free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

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EDITION PUBLISHEDAugust 2008

Genres

Fiction Young Adult Coming Of Age

Themes

Grief without a roadmapThe limits of knowing someone you loveSuffering and the search for a way to bear itGuilt and the stories we tell to survive it

Looking for Alaska

Name: Looking for Alaska
Price: 8.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: John Green

John Green

John Green's debut novel Looking for Alaska follows Miles Halter to an Alabama boarding school in search of what a dying poet called the Great Perhaps, and into a friendship that reorders everything he thought he knew about how to grieve.

The Review

Our take

Miles Halter collects famous last words the way other kids collect anything that lets them feel one step removed from their own life, and Green's whole book is an argument about what it costs to stop being removed. Miles leaves for Culver Creek wanting a bigger life, and what he gets is smaller and stranger: a roommate who calls him Pudge, a crew of kids who smoke in the woods and plan elaborate pranks, and Alaska Young, who reads compulsively, drives recklessly, and treats her own moods like weather nobody else is allowed to forecast.

Green splits the book into a countdown, days marked before and after an event the chapter headings promise is coming, and that structure does something clever to the reading experience: every scene in the "before" half carries a low hum of dread even when nothing bad is happening. A late-night game of Truth or Dare reads differently once you know a clock is running under it. The prank plotlines and the classroom scenes, especially a religion class built around the question of how people bear suffering, aren't padding around the emotional center, they're where the book lays its argument in plain sight before the "after" half forces the characters to actually use it.

Alaska herself is the book's biggest risk. She's magnetic and self-destructive in ways Green doesn't fully explain, because Miles doesn't get to fully explain her either, and some readers want more interiority from her than a boy's infatuated, incomplete narration can supply. It's a real limitation, not an invented one, but it's also close to the book's point: the impossibility of ever completely knowing someone you've built a version of in your head, and the guilt of realizing it too late.

Why you should read

Readers who want grief handled through friendship, not therapy speak
Fans of boarding-school settings with real classroom stakes
Anyone drawn to an unreliable narrator's incomplete picture of someone he loved
Readers who prefer ambiguity over a tidy resolution

What to expect

A before-and-after structure that builds dread without announcing it
Classroom scenes that double as the book's philosophical spine
A magnetic, deliberately unknowable central character
An ending focused on living with unanswered questions

What the second half delivers is a harder, less romantic follow-through: watching teenagers who have no real tools for grief try to build some, badly, out of theology homework and self-blame and each other. The book doesn't let Miles find neat closure. It lets him find a way to keep living inside the not-knowing, which is a truer kind of ending than the mystery plot ever promised.

Reviewed by Avery · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.3/ 5

Excellent

Listen to Looking for Alaska free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of Looking for Alaska?: Yes. Looking for Alaska has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Wil Wheaton.
Listen to Looking for Alaska free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the Looking for Alaska audiobook?: The Looking for Alaska audiobook runs 6 hr 40 min.
Is Looking for Alaska on Kindle Unlimited?: No. Looking for Alaska was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on July 11, 2026.
How much does Looking for Alaska cost?: On Amazon: Kindle $8.99, Paperback $7.59, Hardcover $10.99. Prices as of August 22, 2026 at 3:45 AM EDT and may change.

Filed underYoung Adult Coming Of Age Browse the archive →

CollectionsDebut & First Novels Page to Screen Short Reads Browse collections →

More by John GreenSee every John Green book we've reviewed, with our scores.All John Green books →

Common questions

What is Looking for Alaska about?: Miles Halter collects famous last words the way other kids collect anything that lets them feel one step removed from their own life, and Green's whole book is an argument about what it costs to stop being removed. Miles leaves for Culver Creek wanting a bigger life, and what he gets is smaller…
Is Looking for Alaska worth reading?: We scored Looking for Alaska 4.3 out of 5. John Green's debut novel Looking for Alaska follows Miles Halter to an Alabama boarding school in search of what a dying poet called the Great Perhaps, and into a friendship that reorders everything he thought he knew about how to grieve.