Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter is done with his safe life at home and his obsession with famous last words only makes him crave "the Great Perhaps" (Rabelais). But at Culver Creek Boarding School life becomes the opposite of safe. Because of gorgeous clever funny sexy self-destructive screwed up Alaska Young. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps and steals his heart. After, nothing is ever the same.