Book Summary Of Looking For Alaska By John Green

Improved Essays
Register to read the introduction… The plot follows the details of Alaska’s last moments as Miles and his group struggle to understand what happened. Was it really an accident, or did she kill herself to find her way out of the ‘labyrinth’? Could they have stopped her, knowing her past? Would life ever be the same, now that Alaska was dead? As they pulls out the last prank to commemorate Alaska, Pudge answers Alaska’s question, “How will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?”, concluding that the way out is to forgive, and Alaska’s spirit must still exist somewhere, because it was too full of life to stop existing. Somewhere between looking for the sequel of the Night Angel Trilogy and P.S I Love You books, I found John Green’s Looking For Alaska. …show more content…
“I never liked writing concluding paragraphs to papers - where you repeat what you've already said with phrases like 'In summation', and 'To conclude'.” – Looking For Alaska. To write a summary and review on this book with only 800 words would be unfair, it’s not enough. So, here goes nothing. This is by far one the best books I’ve ever read. Sadness, guilt, anger, mischief, trust, love, John Green penned these in a way I’ve never encountered in any other books. I read this book in one siting; it’s haunting and compelling in the simplest of ways. This is a story of one boy’s journey to seek a Great Perhaps, a story about friendship unlike any told before, a story full of quiet incidents with larger than life lessons. This is not a love story; this is the story about love. After reading and re-reading it again and again, I decided that the Great Perhaps is not a destination, but a journey instead. And I think Pudge found it within himself. “We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreparably broken.”- Pudge. I've messed up everything I could possibly have messed up. For the longest time I was wallowed in self-pity it made me stop doing things for everyone else and it made me realized that this is my life, and one day nobody else is going to care so I need to do things for me. I think I learned this because it showed me how short life really is and that I can take control of things and make my life what I want it to be. This book deals with teens in a realistic and important way. The sprinkling of famous last words and philosophies completes the plot with precise dosage, rather than distract. And the characters, flawed as it is are still very human, well-developed and their actions come across as genuine. This book connects itself so much to me that at one point, I could basically picture myself as Miles ‘Pudge’ Halter. …show more content…
I have so much in common with him, that I’m able to read the book from my point of view. When he says things like “I hated sports. I hated sports, and I hated people who played them, and I hated people who watched them, and I hated people who didn't hate people who watched or played them.” and “I hated talking, and I hated listening to everyone else stumble on their words and try to phrase things in the vaguest possible way so they wouldn’t sound dumb.” I laughed so loud that my mom thought I was on drugs. There were lumps inside my throat when I read the last page of the book. Because I’d like to believe Alaska isn’t dead. I’d like to picture her smoking or drinking in the barn, sorting out her priorities. I’d like to picture her driving home, and stopping at her boyfriend’s house to tell him it’s over. I know she isn’t fully committed to her boyfriend. If she loved her boyfriends, she wouldn’t have felt the need to say it to Pudge. I’d like to see her at home, reading a book alone in her room and most of all, I want to see her happily in love with Pudge. I want to picture her being alive. ”Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.” – Pudge.

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    There are times when life’s situations make us do drastic choices, to help us escape, find ourselves or even to heal the soul within. In the novels “Into the Wild,” and “Wild” both of the characters take an unimaginable trip out into the wilderness to escape everyone and everything that at one point in their life’s was important to them. Both “Into the Wild” and “Wild” are distinctly different from each other, despite wilderness being both of the stories it’s symbol. The distinctions between Chris and Cheryl journeys were their motives, geographic locations, the use of money and food, and being alive at the end of their journey.…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Alaskan journey describes the kind of life McCandless pursued and helps the reader form a motive for McCandless’s disappearance. Chapter eight also helps the reader psychoanalyze McCandless by comparing him to other people that have similarly left society. By comparing McCandless to these other explorers, the readers are able to make connections to his motive and his overall thought process throughout this journey. In Chapter 11, the reader finally meets the family of McCandless, drawing in the emotional appeal of who he most affected. By this point in the novel, McCandless is portrayed as courageous and almost heroic for taking this dangerous journey.…

    • 1101 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Heading into the Alaska ill-prepared would be considered a death wish in the eyes of many but for Chris McCandless this journey had a greater meaning. In the book “Into The Wild” by Jon Krakauer, Krakauer tells how a young man named Chris McCandless left everything he had and everyone that loved him behind to go live in the Alaskan wilderness. Krakauer also leaves it up to the reader to determine whether or not Chris McCandless was crazy, a sociopath, or an outcast for heading into Alaska the way he did. Chris McCandless wasn’t crazy, a sociopath, or an outcast, rather he was a young man who set out knowing what he wanted to do with his life, regardless of the circumstances. Chris McCandless in his journey was trying to find out who he truly was, what he wanted by heading into Alaska, and to accomplish his own personal goals.…

    • 870 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Foolish or Honorable? Chris McCandless’s journey outlined by the novel Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer supports that it is simple and indisputable to apprehend that McCandless was not a heroic figure, just one persuaded by inaccurate decisions. McCandless was not your average student, he had a very bright future ahead of him graduating with high honors from one of the country's most prestigious universities; Emory University, however, threw it all down the drain when he took an everlasting adventure hiking into the Alaskan bush unprepared and alone. Many perceive him to be a hero, leaving the social norms one is expected to carry out throughout life, but, many also view him as a fool who wasted all this god given talent, just to die a cold hearted death. What could persuade a human…

    • 1649 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the chapter’s beginning, he shares the Alaskan locals’ opinions. Many mark Chris as one more “kook” (71) but “McCandless ended up dead, with the story of his dumbassedness splashed across the media” (71). Krakauer’s inclusion of the opinions makes the tone of the chapter serious yet scrutinizing. The tone extends insight into why Chris left and was compelled to Alaska. But at the end of the chapter Krakauer sets Chris apart from the others.…

    • 729 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chris Mccandless Selfish

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer was a very inspirational story about a young man named Chris McCandless on an adventure to Alaska. From the beginning we as the reader know that Chris does not survive. Chris seemed to survive well, until he reached the wilderness of Alaska consequently. Meeting new people, having them house him, feed him, give him work. His intelligence, lacked in the wilderness, moreover, his common sense wasn't the best either.…

    • 428 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I had a few difficulties on deciding what quotes I wanted to use to make sense of the questions that were asked. I learned that next time while reading I should take more extensive notes about what I think might be important. Another difficult aspect that took me hours was to summarize the book in less than 400 words. It took me a couple of times, but I think that I managed to get less than 400 words. I think my strengths of this paper are the process of selection.…

    • 602 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    One of the main contributing factors to Chris’ odyssey into the wilderness, was the work of authors such as Jack London and Henry David Thoreau who wrote extensively about one’s connection with nature and valuing the simplicity in life. Chris became “enthralled by these tales, however, […] he seemed to forget they were works of fiction”(44). Jack London, the author he admired the most, “spent a single winter in the North” and died by his own hand in California (44). Though Chris read the works of many authors, he is also aware that these virtually perfect writers did not embody behavior that Chris would deem acceptable. Nevertheless, he continues to imitate their action.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chris McCandless died, starving and alone in the Alaskan wilderness. His death sent shockwaves through the country, inspiring the book Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer. Readers of Krakauer’s stirring novel have raised the question: was Chris McCandless unprepared for his escapade or did he merely suffer a cruel hand of fate? When the romance and mythology is removed from his story, it becomes clear that McCandless was in over his head from day one. Though he had enough confidence for 10 people and had survived on his own for months, McCandless’s lack of experience and extreme pride would be his downfall.…

    • 879 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Small Groups, Big Impact Have you ever felt like the odds were against you? Like there were no hopes in fixing a global issue because you were only one person? From the essay “How to Melt the Arctic,” written by John Bocknek, he says, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” The author enforces that no matter the problem, a person or a group of people can change a global issue. In today’s society, people underestimate the impact that they have if they work by themselves or even in an organization.…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Mccandless Journey

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In John Krakauer’s “Into the Wild,” Chris McCandless set out on an odyssey into the American wilderness, and eventually the Alaskan bush, in the 1990s. Throughout McCandless’s journey, he reflected on himself and on society through books. Much of this literature he read is centered towards the lifestyle that comes with living in the wild. In some of the books he read, McCandless highlighted passages he believed to be noteworthy. Most, if not all, of these passages reflected his life, specifically his adventure, in its many aspects.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Christopher McCandless, a college graduate coming from a well to do family, drops everything in his life so he can embark on an adventure that he lacks the skill and knowledge to survive. Chris aka Alexander Supertramp makes questionable choices throughout his voyage to Alaska leaving the reader to decide whether Chris’ admirable choices outweigh his stupid ones. Although the road that Chris pursues is an admirable path, the way he carries out his choices is unintelligent and…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The novel, Into the Wild, written by Jon Krakauer, is a riveting, cautionary tale about the death of Chris McCandless, a young man who embarks on a journey to Alaska to seek the truth of happiness through the solitude of nature and free himself from the constraints of society. No doubt, the ongoing theme throughout Krakauer’s novel is the dysfunctional father-son relationship between Chris and his dad. In fact, McCandless died before he had the chance to grow out of his anger. Into the Wild examines the fatal expedition of Chris McCandless as he breaks all ties from society and challenges his ability to survive in the wilderness. Through the use of primary sources, situational irony, and syntax, Krakauer thoroughly captures the compelling tragedy of Chris McCandless.…

    • 891 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is not difficult to find the tale of a golden child gone awry in not only literature, but life as well. However, in the book Into the Wild, author Jon Krakauer captures this stale premise in a way that in compelling, understandable, and above all, trustworthy: a rarity in the world of nonfiction. Into the Wild revolves around the life of Chris McCandless, but it is very much a personal story, made so not only by the author incorporating McCandless’s family in the suffering and loss of their son, but also by detailing his own experiences mountaineering. By using his own life experiences as a reference for Into the Wild, Krakauer is able to write the novel with empathy and connect with McCandless on a personal level, allowing him to explore…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Into the Wild is a significant example of rhetorical appeals because of how successful Jon Krakauer wrote Chris McCandless’s adventures and relationships to catch the attention of his audience. Krakauer used many rhetorical appeals such as ethos, logos and pathos in order to get this story across to his audience. Krakauer appeals ethically to his audience by using tools to effectively make comparisons of Chris McCandless, as well as being able to show McCandless was not insane. Krakauer saw himself inside of the story that McCandless lead.…

    • 1093 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays