Penzes,+Kaitlin

l o o k i n g f o r a l a s k a **John Green **Wiki by Kate Penzes

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__**Plot.**__  Miles "Pudge" Halter leaves home for boarding school in hopes of broadening his horizons and finding adventure in his boring life; seeking what Francois Rabelais called "The Great Perhaps." He attends Culver Creek Boarding school, where he discovers life is no longer boring. He meets Alaska Young. She's self-destructive, beautiful; a black hole of fun. She pulls him into her Labyrinth. What happens **After** will change everything....



__**Characters.**__ 
 * Miles "Pudge" Halter.** A Freshman at the Culver Creek Boarding School. He has an interest in famous last words, and is head over heels for Alaska Young.
 * Alaska Young.** Described as funny, clever, wild and self destructive. She is the mystery that steals Pudge's heart.
 * Chip "The Colonel" Martin.** Pudge's roommate and Alaska's best friend. While Alaska may be the master mind behind the pranks at Culver Creek, the Colonel is the one who plans everything down to the second.

__**Analysis of Style.**__  Title. The title can be only slightly misleading, until you read the back synopsis to discover that Alaska is the name of a person, and not the state. However, it does have a deeper meaning than just literally searching; it goes deeper than that. Pudge is searching for motives, for reasons and why things ended the way they did.

Chapters. Looking for Alaska is divided into two parts, Before and After. When asked his reasoning for this, John Green said that he remembered 9/11 as a defining moment in America's history. In religion, as well, people date from before and after the birth of Christ. He said "We look back at the most important moment in our history and that becomes the dividing point between what we were and what we are now."

Character Development. **Before:** Characters change from experience. Pudge learns the ways of the creek and grows with what he learned in class and his nights with the Colonel and Alaska.
 * After:** They are no longer kids. Alaska's actions have catapulted them into the worlds of adults, and the consequences have impacted them forever.

Detail. <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">John Green details everything beautifully. His words are powerful and he details the impact one life can have on another in a profound and almost heartbreaking way. He works words to describe the mind, wandering through the mysteries of human nature. The book is 1st person, and so undoubtedly human.

<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 168%; text-align: center;">Conclusion. <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">The conclusion is bitter-sweet, but oddly satisfying. <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 60%; text-align: center; vertical-align: sub;">(I cried.) <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;"> There's a certain closure in last words, and Pudge's final sentence details the essence of human nature; that we don't always know someone's ultimate fate, but we can only hope for them.

**<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 204%; text-align: center;">__Reviews and Praise__. **<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">2006 Winner, Michael L. Printz Award 2005 Finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize 2005 Top 10, Best Book For Young Adults 2005, Teens' Top 10 Award 2005, Quick Pick For Reluctant Young Readers Award <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: center;">

//"Green's entire writing style is magnificent. He manages to capture the voice of a sixteen-year-old boy but remain lyrical, which is quite the feat to pull off. Everything about this book is perfect. It deals with what really makes us human: the problems, the triumphs, the decisions." --// Eva Kay

//"Sadness, guilt, anger, trust, renewal --- the signature signs of grief and healing are all delicately unpacked in John Green's coming-of-age novel. Full of quiet incidents with larger than life lessons, LOOKING FOR ALASKA is a poignant novel that teens should not overlook." -- Alexis Burling

"Readers will only hope that this is not the last word from this promising new author." --** Publishers Weekly**//

<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 155.52%; text-align: center;">Destiny Review. <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 129.6%; text-align: center;">//Looking for Alaska// was written by John Green and published in 2005. It was his debut novel. I enjoyed this book. A lot. I gave it a 9.6/10 <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 84%; text-align: center;">(//Paper Towns// got a 9.8/10.) <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">//Looking for Alaska// shows how life can change in the blink of an eye, and how one life can impact another like nothing else. It's so moving in how human it is, and how the characters are so easy to relate to. You feel their triumphs and their losses. The book is the essence of what it means to be human.

<span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 216%; text-align: center;">__**Other information.**__ <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;"> <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 168%; text-align: center;">About John Green: <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">-He has written three books; //Looking For Alaska// (2005), //Paper Towns// (2009) and //An Abundance of Katherines// (2008). -He grew up in Orlando, Florida and now lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. -He and his brother, Hank Green, created a year-long video blog called Brotherhood 2.0 -He recently had a [|son], named Henry. -The official name for his and Hank's fans are called Nerdfighters. -Paramount Pictures plans to turn Looking for Alaska in to a movie, titled Famous Last Words. The rights were bought in 2005, and according to John, the movie is still in production ("It takes a long, long time to make a movie. Like, Beowulf was written like, 11,000 years ago, and it was just made into a movie, like, least year.") A release date is speculated for 2013. <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 144%; text-align: center;">

[|Controversy] <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: center;">Despite the fact the Looking For Alaska is a young adult novel, it was met with much controversy in schools. Due to the fact that Pudge, Alaska and the Colonel indulge in "explicit" activities (i.e. Smoking, drinking, mentions of sex, cursing) <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 200%; text-align: center;">

__EXTRAS.__ <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; text-align: center;">media type="youtube" key="q_Kd_wi4c7w" height="405" width="500" media type="youtube" key="Lht_JH2xi6w" height="405" width="500" (In which John Discusses a prank from his time in a boarding school, which acted as inspiration for one of Alaska's pranks. Warning: adult language. <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-size: 160%; text-align: center;">

__Works Cited.__ <span style="background-color: #000000; color: #c0c0c0; display: block; font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 110%; text-align: left;">

Kay, Eva. "Looking for Alaska by John Green." //Book Rev. of Looking for Alaska by John Green. Curled Up with a Good Kid's Book// n. pag. Web. 4 Jun 2010. Web. <http://curledupkids.com>.

Burling, Alexis. "Looking for Alaska." //Book Rev. of Looking for Alaska by John Green.// //Teen Reads// n. pag. Web. 4 Jun 2010. Web. <Teenreads.com>.

"Review." //Book Rev. of Looking for Alaska by John Green. Publishers Weekly// n. pag. Web. 4 Jun 2010. Web. <Amazon.com>.