Looking for Alaska:

By; John Green

Page number: 221

Originally published: 2005

"And now she was colder by the hour, more dead with every breath I took." (pg. 144)

Thoughts:

Death is an evaded topic in our lives. We defer thinking about death for as long as we can, until there is an event that forces us to confront it. Without feeling the presence of death near you, it is almost impossible to understand it as an actual life experience, rather than this far-away, abstract idea. Getting old, losing a loved one, going to a funeral, passing by a graveyard, or experiencing a life-threatening situation leaves no choice but to deliberate death.

Although birthdays are celebrated, they indicate the speedy approach of the "Great Perhaps".

When enough birthdays happen, and when you feel that you ran most of the race and are almost at the finishing line, it becomes unavoidable to think about it.

Most aim to leave a lasting mark in the world that will last their legacies, whether a good or a bad one. "He was the most powerful to ever come" or "She was the richest in all of history." Although it would be comforting to feel that our lives will be noteworthy to people in the future, we don't recall almost any of the lives before us, so it might not be so.

If death is the end of our souls like it is the end for our bodies, where will we be, or will we even continue "to be"? And if the memories involving us are the only way for us to still exist, how does one bear the idea of being forgotten completely, buried into nothingness? Perhaps, the sense of eagerness for eternity and the intolerance of non-existence can be seen as the biggest proves of an afterlife, of the reality of a time, a place, a creation after death.

Summary:

Culver Creek Boarding School seemed to me the hanging ground for the hard-working pranksters who loved the taste of wine and smoke a bit too enthusiastically. Pudge, after coming from Florida, finds himself becoming a part of the social circle in the school. With his new roommate Colonel and the only resident of Room 48, Alaska, Pudge begins to feel unfamiliar sensations. For the inexperienced Pudge, the events in the school help him find excitement, fear, and passion, opening his eye to the alien world of his two authentic new friends.

Although the story is Pudge's, Alaska fills the pages with herself. On page 88 Pudge says about her, "So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane." Although it is difficult to box anyone into the tiny cage of a single word, "spirited" would be the one I'd use for Alaska. She was either flying over the horizons or gone, vanished: no in between. She acted like how she felt, and how she felt was as mysterious as it was ardent.

The story is a set of adventures and drama surrounding Pudge, Alaska, and the Colonel. The author offers an entertaining group of characters and an engrossing plot.

personal rating of the book: 8/10