[2] Reading Response on: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Reading Response on Looking for Alaska by John Green

By: Alex Williams

Class: 806

            Have you ever questioned the meaning of your life? Have you ever thought there was something more than just going through the motions of your daily existence? In Looking for Alaska, John Green explores the idea of seeking something more to life. The story centers around Pudge, a teenager who finds himself craving adventure. Weary of going to the local mediocre school in Florida where he is completely unexcited by his teachers, his classes, and his almost non-existent social life, he asks his parents to enroll him in boarding school.  His dad agrees to let him go to the school he himself once attended, Culver Creek, in Alabama. There, Pudge meets Alaska, a half crazy beautiful girl, aka his best friend, who influences him tremendously. Pudge's experiences with Alaska and at Culver Creek will change the course of his life.

            At the beginning of Looking for Alaska, Pudge has no direction in life. For years, he has been un-engaged in class, only studies for tests, and has achieved almost nothing. Pudge wants to do something meaningful that will help him determine his direction in life, or at least have some sort of adventure. An example of the pointlessness of his life at home is when his mom hosts him a going away party, which is sort of a joke, as Pudge has no friends. As Pudge says, his mom thought that he had been keeping his "popularity secret from her all these years." In reality, he had no social life at all, and he wants to change that. As Pudge says after he leaves home to go to Culver Creek,    "[I] left my family and the rest of my minor life."

            At Culver Creek, Pudge gains a level of freedom and self-discovery that he could barely comprehend in his old school. In some ways, the lifestyle of the new school seems crazy. There is much less supervision of the students, and the kids play pranks on the teachers and on each other. However, there is a certain ethos to the place. None of the kids is allowed to tell the teachers who performed a certain prank, and if someone does tell, they are shunned by all of the students. Kids misbehave regularly, and even though they must keep a fairly high GPA throughout their time at Culver, they have a fun time, too. Alaska helps him understand this lifestyle better and have a more enjoyable time, and as he later says, "She taught me everything I knew about crawfish and kissing and pink wine and poetry. She made me different." Moreover, the teachers are unique and far more interesting than at Pudge's old school. They give Pudge a great deal to think about.

            After Pudge experiences the stimulating and challenging lifestyle that is Culver Creek for just a few days, he knows that he belongs there. He embraces the large quantities of freedom, and he begins to understand that there is more to life than he had previously thought.  Even though at first he feels out of place with the wide-spread smoking and drinking at the school, as he used to have a life that was heavily constrained by his parents, he is soon enveloped in the lifestyle of Culver. This helps him loosen up and think about more than just the present, and more about the greater scheme of things in life. Pudge interacts more with the other students and has a better social life because he and his newfound friends, such as Alaska, are able to get together more and have more fun. Pudge has had a real taste of what he has come to Culver for, and he is opening up more and more to new ideas.

            Toward the end of the book, Pudge discovers what life is truly about for himself. He is shocked by the seemingly senseless death of Alaska, who is killed in a car accident, which devastates Pudge. In the aftermath of the incident, he thinks a lot about the death of the girl he had come to love, and tries to find some meaning in his despair. Ultimately, he reaches for something uplifting. As he says at the end of the book, "When adults say, 'Teenagers think they are invincible' with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are . . . like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations . . . but that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, so it cannot fail." Pudge has found his own equivalent of religious beliefs for himself.  These beliefs are that everyone becomes something more than themselves, and that the life force of his friend Alaska will never end. In this experience alone, his time at Culver Creek has managed to change him and his beliefs even more than he ever could have expected.

            Looking for Alaska is a deeply moving, eye-opening story of one boy's quest to find the meaning of life. This award-winning novel taught me a number of lessons, including about how it is good to not always be studying and to relax more and be open to new experiences, ideas, and people. I think the reason that John Green wrote Looking for Alaska was to awaken kids to the possibilities of life. I think he wanted to show kids who were uninspired by their lives that they could find a way to live fuller, deeper, more meaningful lives, which is a lesson that can offer inspiration to every teenager.