General information

The title of the book is Looking for Alaska. It’s written by John Green. John Green is an American author. The novel was first published in 2005. Looking for Alaska is John Green’s first novel.

Summary

One Hundred and Thirty-six Days Before
Miles’ mom insisted on throwing him a going-away party because he was going to boarding school. Only two people came to say goodbye. After they left his mom asked if he wanted to go to boarding school because he wasn’t really popular and his dad asked if he wanted to go to boarding school because he went but Miles said he wants to start seeking a Great Perhaps.

One Hundred and Twenty-eight Days Before
Miles parents left him in his dorm room in his new state Alabama. After taking a shower miles gets to know his roommate Chip, who’s called the Colonel, and names him Pudge. They go to Alaska, the hottest girl in all of human history in Pudge’s opinion, to buy cigarettes. Alaska goes to search for Takumi and Pudge and the Colonel are going to the lake to smoke. After the Colonel’s left, Alaska shows up to quiz him about his talent, remembering people’s last words.

One Hundred and Twenty-seven Days Before
Pudge decides he wants a good night of sleep before his first day of school, but a few hours after he fell asleep 3 boys get him out of bed and take him to the lake. On the beach, they duct-taped him together and threw him into the lake. When Pudge gets out of the water he firsts decides to go to Alaska, but she’s acting like a bitch, so he just goes back to his room. He tells the Colonel what happened and he’s really angry and ready for revenge.

One Hundred and Twenty-six Days Before
Alaska heard the full story of the night before and she’s pissed. Whenever Pudge sees one of the guys who’d thrown him into the lake he had to point them out, and so he did.

One Hundred and Twenty-two Days Before
The Colonel has a date with his girlfriend, but when she arrives she gets angry because he didn’t press his shirt and she walks away. Pudge and the Colonel stay behind.

One Hundred and Ten Days Before
Pudge was staring out of the window during his World Religion class so he gets kicked out. Alaska gets angry and tells the teacher he shouldn’t abuse his power, and so she also gets kicked out. After class finished Pudge, the Colonel, Alaska and Takumi went to the smoking hole where Alaska and the Colonel fought a little more about the incident that had happened earlier in class.

One Hundred and Nine Days Before
Culver Creek’s basketbal competition had started. Their team’s really bad. In the end, the Colonel got kicked out of the gym for bothering the players by insulting them.

One Hundred and Eight Days Before
Pudge has to stay after his World Religion class and his teacher tells him he has to be present in class, and when class ends, he has to be present out there.

One Hundred and One Days Before
Alaska took some kids to McDonald's to teach them precalculus. She ate, talked and smoked for over an hour.

One Hundred Days Before
Pudge asks Alaska about her name and she tells him she got to pick it herself as a birthday present. She chose it because Alaska, the country, is big and far away from home, just as she wanted to be. And she told him we just use the future to escape the present. That the plans you have for the future keep you going, but you never make them reality.

Ninety-nine Days Before
Pudge, the Colonel, Alaska and Takumi got caught smoking by the Eagle. They have to go to the Jury tomorrow.

Ninety-eight Days Before
The four of them have to go to Jury. Takumi and the Colonel dressed in a shirt and tie. The Colonel tells what happened the last night and Takumi says he and Pudge only kept the Colonel and Alaska company. In the end Alaska and the Colonel got ten working hours and that was it.

Eighty-nine Days Before
Alaska finds Pudge a girlfriend, or more like a potential girlfriend. She plans an triple-and-a-half date for Friday.

Eighty-seven Days Before
The date is today. They go to a basketbal match, but after the Colonel offends a six-foot-seven beast, Pudge gets hit on the head with the bal. He was concussed and puked on Lara’s pants. After he got woken up by the Colonel, the Colonel tells him he broke up with his girlfriend that night.

Eighty-four Days Before
It started to rain and it didn’t end. The Colonel was heartbroken and Alaska didn’t feel like talking.

Seventy-six Days Before
The Colonel was over his heartbreak. They got their final exam paper for their World Religion class and the Weekday Warriors (the rich kids) flooded Alaska’s room.

Sixty-six Days Before
Takumi told Pudge Alaska’d ratten out Marya and Paul. He tells him they’ll both be involved in a prank, and that he should never rat out anyone.

Fifty-eight Days Before
Pudge calls his parents to tell them he’d spent Thanksgiving at the Creek, but when he hangs up he feels guilty. After class he called his parents again to tell them he’d love to spent Thanksgiving with them, but his mom tells him they’d bought plane tickets to spent Thanksgiving in England.

Fifty-two Days Before
Alaska woke Pudge up. They went to the guys room who ducted-taped Pudge and found out how to prank them. By pranking their scalps.

Forty-nine Days Before
Alaska and Pudge went into everyone’s room to find out their secrets, and even the most innocent people have secrets.

Forty-six Days Before
The Colonel’s mom invited Alaska and Pudge for Thanksgiving. The Colonel lives in a trailer, and that’s why he hates rich people, because he’s poor.

Forty-five Days Before
After the food they all listed their gratitudes, and on the way back home it was the first time Pudge thought of the Creek as that. As his home.

Forty-three Days Before
Alaska showed up at Pudge’s room, drunk. She was upset about everything. Saying she ruined everything and trying not to be scared. She told the Colonel about ratting Marya and Paul. The Colonel said he couldn’t trust her on her own anymore.

Christmas
They all went home for Christmas break. Pudge studied most of the time. In the evenings his mom taught him how to cook and he talked about the books he has to read for his English class with his dad.

Eight Days Before
Alaska came in and said they needed a pre-prank, so the Eagle’d think the prank is done and doesn’t really pay attention anymore when the real prank comes. Alaska and the Colonel are working on the pre-prank and that hurts Pudge. He wants to be involved.

Four Days Before
The Colonel wouldn’t tell anything about the pre-prank, so Pudge just studied a lot. He finished his religion paper and his conclusion is that people believe in an afterlife because they couldn’t bear not to.

Three Days Before
The day of the pranks. They all got off campus without any trouble. They put their stuff in a barn and the Colonel tells the plan. Pudge and Takumi have to get the Eagle out of his house by lighting fireworks. The Colonel and Alaska sneak in and write fake e-mails about the Weekday Warriors saying their failing classes, and Lara got into Kevin’s room and put blue hair paint into his hair products.

Two Days Before
All they did was drink that day. The stayed in the barn and Alaska made up a game, you had to tell your worst and your best day, and she told how her mom died and how she blames herself. Pudge and Lara made out for the frist time that night.

One Day Before
They checked in again and after that all Pudge did was sleep. Eighteen hours long.

The Last Day
The Colonel and Alaska drank on the success of the barn night, and they did truth or dare. Pudge had to make out with Alaska, and so they did. The phone rang and Alaska went to get it. She came back crying and said she had to get out and if Pudge and the Colonel could distract the Eagle to get her off campus.

After:

The Day After
The Eagle woke everyone up to tell Alaska died that night. She was in a car accident. And all the Colonel could do was cry and scream and Pudge thought it was just a prank, but it wasn’t.

Two Days After
The Colonel went for a walk and Pudge had nightmares all the time.

Four Days Later
The Colonel came back from his walk, totally frozen.

Six Days After
Takumi, Lara, the Colonel and Pudge drove to Vine Station for Alaska’s funeral. Pudge and the Colonel kept whispering things into the coffin, and maybe, that labyrinth is worse than this one.

Seven Days After
The Colonel and Pudge went to Alaska’s room to get out stuff her aunt wouldn’t like to find, and Pudge found the book with the labyrinth quote. She wrote something next to it, ‘straight and fast’, and that’s when they started questioning if her death wasn’t a suicide attempt.

Eight Days After
Dr Hyde came into class and wrote Alaska’s final exam question on the blackboard; ‘How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?’ He asked how everyone was doing, and people who never cared about Alaska were sad, which was bullshit.

Nine Days After
The Colonel came up with a theory, and with a plan; 1. Talk to eyewitnesses, 2. Figure out how drunk she was and 3. Figure out where she was going and why. But the plan involved talking to Jake and Pudge didn’t want that.

Thirteen Days After
The Colonel and Pudge went to the police station to ask some questions, and the officer convinced them that it might’ve been suicide.

Fourteen Days After
They didn’t make any progress. Maybe Alaska wanted this all to be a mystery.

Twenty Days After
Pudge and Takumi went to McDonald's for lunch and they had their first real conversation since Alaska died, and Pudge kind of broke up with Lara.

Twenty-seven Days After
Pudge and the Colonel were about to find out how drunk Alaska was and if she could drive accidentally into a cop car, but halfway through their experiment the Eagle came in and caught Pudge smoking.

Twenty-eight Days After
Pudge came back from Jury to find the Colonel telling Takumi everything. He wasn’t really surprised. The Colonel said he’d call Jake the next day.

Twenty-nine Days After
The Colonel called Jake and Pudge told Takumi he’d made out with Alaska the night she died. Jake said Alaska wasn’t driving to see him.

Thirty-seven Days After
Pudge told Lara he was sorry for ignoring her but all she did was look angry. It was the first time he spoke to her after Alaska’d died.

Forty-five Days After
They ran out of cigarettes they got so they went to Coosa Liquors to buy new ones, since Alaska wasn’t there anymore to sell them cigarettes.

Forty-six Days After
Pudge went to Lara to talk, and after that they went to the smoking hole with the Colonel and Takumi and made a list with all the proofs they have for suicide.

Fifty-one Days After
Dr Hyde talked about some Buddha and said everything falls apart. And Pudge thinks that’s maybe the only answer they’ll ever get. She fell apart because that’s what happens.

Sixty-two Days After
Pudge called his parents, but during the phone call he noticed drawn flowers, Alaska’s doodles, the ones she made while she was talking to Jake. But the doodles were leading to nowhere, because they still don’t know what she forgot.

Sixty-nine Days After
In memorial of Alaska, the school was going to build a playground by the lake, but Lara said they have to do something she’d love. And so the Colonel and Pudge are planning a memorial prank. A prank Alaska’d made.

Eighty-three Days After
The Colonel’d planned the whole prank to the second and told the crew what they had to do.

Eighty-four Days After
Pudge called his dad to ask if he’d be a part of the prank, and said he’d love to. So he’s the speaker for Speakers Day and he studies psychology and is an expert in adolescent understandings of sexuality.

One Hundred and Two Days After
So the speaker turned out to be a stripper, and after his speech music began to play and he ripped off his jeans and costume.

One Hundred and Fourteen Days After
Takumi told the day Alaska died was the same day as her mom died, only years before. So she was doodling flowers while being on the phone with Jake, and she remembers her mom’s anniversary. In a hurry she drives to her mom’s grave and it still might’ve een suicide but at least that clears up a lot.

One Hundred and Eighteen Days After
They gave up. They’d had enough of chasing Alaska. But they wanted to do one more thing; drive down the road she was going, and they did. And they realized they were still alive.

One Hundred and Ninety Days After
After they gave up, they threw their selves into school. They had to pass their finals. And they missed Alaska for teaching precalc.

One Hundred and Twenty-two Days After
Dr Hyde’s exam question is Alaska’s question, and they don’t have to write out different religions, they have to write out their own thoughts.

One Hundred and Thirty-six Days Before
On the last day of school, Pudge found a letter from Takumi saying he’d seen Alaska on that night and she told him about her mom, and that he was sorry for letting her go too. And after Pudge read that he wrote his religion paper and said he hoped the somewhere we imagine, is beautiful.

Title
The title is “Looking for Alaska”. It isn’t about looking for her as in looking for her body and looking for her soul, it is about looking for what happened to her and what she was thinking. It’s more about Pudge and the Colonel and Takumi finding peace with her death than really looking for her. They want to find peace by finding out how she died, what she was thinking, where she was going and if it was suicide or not. In the end they give up and find peace without knowing everything, but it has taken a while and they need to go on with their lifes.

Setting
They story’s set at Culver Creek, their boarding school, and surroundings. It’s also set at Pudge’s house in the beginning, the Colonel’s trailer with Thanksgiving, Vine Station for Alaska’s funeral and the road Alaska drove the night she died.

The story takes place in our time. And the story takes 272 pages to happen.

This novel is chronological. The story is some sort of diary where Miles writes down his adventures at Culver Creek. The author didn’t use any flashbacks, only conversations where they talk about the past.

Characters

The main character is Miles (Pudge). Miles isn’t popular in his school and doesn’t have any friends. All he does is ready biographies. He’s a silent boy and doesn’t go out a lot. But when he comes to Culver Creek he makes friends with Chip, who leads him to Alaska, and Alaska leads him to Takumi and Lara. Now he has a close group of friends and he isn’t as silent as he used to be. He’s getting more social and enjoys life.

Theme

The story was written to entertain people. At the beginning of the book is says “To my family: Sydney Green, Mike Green and Hank Green” so it’s probably to make them proud too.

There are a lot of messages in the story. Most of the last words Pudge remembers are messages. The story about Miles is also a message. It says that you don’t always have to be a loser. If you’re not popular in one school it doesn’t mean you won’t get friends in another. Not all people are the same and so not all people can be your friend. Not everyone has to like you, as long as you don’t hurt anyone and you’ve got people holding your back you’ll be fine.

I don’t really know if there’s a warning in the story. Drinking and smoking are obviously not a warning since that’s all they do in the book. Maybe the warning is that life can always end. You never know when you die. So don’t ever fight for too long, you don’t ever know when that other person dies and maybe they’ll die during the fight. Don’t ever make someone leave if you’ll regret it.

The novel does address any social issues and problems. At first, it is about not having friends and being anti-social. And in the end, it’s about suicide. Pudge and the Colonel go online to find a list of warning signs of suicide. They think Alaska’s didn’t show most of those warnings, because she was joking most of the time, but only talking about it could be a sign, even joking.