"Looking for Alaska" follows the novel's main character and narrator Miles Halter, or "Pudge," to boarding school where he goes to seek the "Great Perhaps," the famous last words of François Rabelais. Throughout the first half of the novel, Miles and his friends Chip "The Colonel" Martin, Alaska Young, and Takumi Hikohito grow very close and the section culminates in Alaska's death. In the second half of the novel, Miles and his friends work to discover the missing details of the night Alaska died. While struggling to reconcile Alaska's death, Miles grapples with the last words of Simón Bolivar and the meaning of life, leaving the conclusion to these topics unresolved.