Creative Writing: Looking For Alaska By John Green

During finals week, my friend and I were talking about how it was coming up very shortly and how stressed we were becoming. She found out I was in need of a novel to help distract me from this dreadful week. She recommended Looking for Alaska by John Green. I decided to buy a copy from Barnes and Noble and once I got home I snuggled up in a comfy chair, wrapped in a blanket and began to read. I remember first starting the novel and being quite boring. In fact, I felt bad for the protagonist, Miles Halter. The beginning of the story is Miles is throwing a party because he is switching schools and only two people showed up. As he sits with his parents, Miles mentions a poet, François Rabelais, who’s last words were “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”

It was very hard to set the novel down and study. The beginning of each entry there was a countdown of days before the climax. The suspense continued to grow as I got closer to whatever the plot was counting down to. My first exam was biology and I finished very early. I immediately grabbed my book and excitingly opened it. I picked up on the scene where the group of friends decides to play truth or dare. Pudge and Alaska are dared to go make out and Pudge is excited to have a chance to test some romance. Drunk and tired, the two fall asleep in her bedroom. In the middle of the night Alaska wakes up to make a phone call and when she returns to the room she is hysterical. She begs Colonel and Miles to set of fireworks to distract the Eagle and allow her to drive off campus. The next morning the boys wake up and hear news that Alaska died in a car accident. Once I had processed Alaska had died I began sobbing. All of my peers saw me but there was no part of me that cared. I had grown very fond of Alaska and I was so devastated she

Pudge has some answers and uses this exam to write himself out of his own suffering about Alaska. Once finals week was over and I finished the novel, my friend and I began discussing the novel. We came to the conclusion, Looking for Alaska has a very simple and light hearted plot at times, until you start picking apart different ideas that appear in it. We talked for hours in her living room on different themes that emerge from the plot. I realized how interesting the concept was and began searching other reader’s responses to see what their views were. The idea of seeking the Great Perhaps and suffering of labyrinth always stood out to me. This novel really surrounds these ideas and death. I believe the novel is to remind people to not hope and wait around for a moment to happen but to appreciate life and all the little moments apart of it. Alaska’s death happened right in the middle of the novel to remind readers how quickly life can be taken from you. Every now and then, people get caught up in everything that is going wrong in their lives and how is will get better with time. Pudge fixates on the idea of how he will find the Great Perhaps and as Miles moves from one school to another he is in search of it. He is continually disappointed in his current state. In the first half of the novel, he has hope he will find it. He does not realize that the Great