Chapter summaries

John Green's novel Looking for Alaska tells the story of Miles Halter, a boy who arrives as a new student at a private boarding school. He wants to experience new things and make new friends. His wishes come true, but suddenly he is confronted with death after his friend Alaska is killed in a car accident. The exciting narrative is divided into two parts and 59 chapters that vary in length.

The first part of the novel presents the time before Alaska's death, while the second part the time after her death. Alaska's death is placed exactly in the middle of the chronological sequence. It is therefore the key point of the story and is thus marked as an important event. The story starts exactly 136 days before Alaska's death and ends 136 days after Alaska's death. Thus, the story contains a chronological symmetry.

Our chapter summary provides a clear overview of every individual chapter of the novel. Following the structure of the novel, the summaries will also clearly show the days before and after Alaska’s death. All the respective characters are listed and the most important events are shortly summarized. This way, the content of the story can be quickly and easily understood. For better reference, the page numbers of the respective chapters are also given. This, combined with the analysis, characterization, and themes chapters will give you a good basis to work with the text on your own.