Summer Reading Assignment: Entry Two

As with every novel, each character has its own unique complexities. To increase the amount of interest given to that character, they are given one or more certain desires, or goals they would like to fulfill in life. And with the variety of characters in Looking for Alaska by John Green, that's a given.

What are the desire of Miles "Pudge" Halter? Well, let's just say they are also the desires of many other boys who are attending boarding school at Culver Creek. Go to parties, hook up with a girl (or two, maybe more...) and the rest is classified, yet quite obvious. However, his goals go way farther than just that. He wants to make some friends that are not just drama geeks and people who have no one else to talk to. That's when he met the Colonel, Takumi and Alaska, so right off the bat he got some boxes already checked off.

The only desire that the Colonel, Chip Martin acquires is to have another fun year at Culver Creek. He also did some things that he should have done a while ago, such as breaking up with his picky, frustrating girlfriend Sara. Another goal of his is to end the constant torment of the Weekday Warriors gang at the school. After the hateful acts they have committed towards him and Alaska, their main target, for seeing each other such as urinating in their shoes and flooding their dorm rooms, payback and vengeance is at bay for his list of missions to accomplish.

Takumi's goal is simple. Impress some people. He has lots of talents, and he wants to show them off. He is the class clown of Culver Creek. He gains an audience every time he cracks a joke or slips up. He's also almost a professional rapper. On Page 68, he starts a rap cycle when he hangs out with Pudge, the Colonel, Alaska and Lara. They all eventually join in, cracking their own creative rhymes.
He also doesn't want to get caught, because you can't catch the Fox.

Alaska doesn't have that many desires. She feels as if her life's wishes have already been fulfilled. She has a faithful boyfriend, she has tons of other friends who are always on her side. However, throughout the continuation of the novel, she seems to have an empty space inside, the gap constantly widening. I suspect that she is secretly falling in love with Pudge. That being said, Pudge secretly falls in love with Alaska, for her beauty and personality, so this situation will very much engage the reader to see what happens next.

A theme that is starting to convey throughout the book is that whenever the chips are down or the going gets rough, your friends shall always be by your side. Whether it'd be your defeat by a bitter rival or just some type of personal misfortune, your pals will have your back.

The structure of Looking for Alaska is very much conventional, only however there are no chapters. There are two main sections, "Before," and "After." The different "chapters"are formed in a sort of "countdown" fashion, for example "Ninety Eight Days Before." That fragment being in the "Before" section of the novel.

Summer Reading Assignment: Entry One

For summer reading, I am currently in the midst of reading Looking for Alaska by John Green. You may have well heard of this novel, as it is the debut novel of the same author as of The Fault in Our Stars, which its movie rendition is currently ripping through box offices across the globe. But while that book sheds more tears than anything else, the book I am on right now is more of a gripping, entertaining read.

 Our protagonist in this book is Miles Halter, who later acquires the nickname "Pudge" for the sake of irony due to his thin, dainty physique. His existence is an embodiment of awkward, and his interests are anything but abundant. His life wasn't all that fun in his Florida public school. The only friends he had were drama geeks who didn't devote their lives to anything else but that. But then he makes the decision to transfer to boarding school, Culver Creek in Alabama, to be specific. His father had previously went there, and often times shared of his fun times there. And once Pudge had moved into his dorm room, his social and emotional life is changed forever.

Miles' roommate, Chip Martin, who bears the nickname, "The Colonel," has been to Culver Creek before. He is a more laid back, irresponsible human being who leisurely drinks and smokes, His favorite drink being Ambrosia, a 5:1 mix of milk and vodka, and his favorite drug being cigarettes. He has a good relationship with video games, and a bad relationship with his girlfriend, Sara, whom he later breaks up with.

Alaska Young is the cute, pretty, funny, attractive, fun, crazy, outrageous, stupid and emotionally unstable girl who lives two doors down from Pudge and the Colonel. She lives alone in her dorm, for her roommate got expelled for the Trifecta (being drunk, high and having someone else be in your bed with you). It turned out that Alaska had ratted her out, which made her a huge target for the Weekday Warriors, the group of antagonists in the novel. She is also the main distributor for drugs and alcohol in Culver Creek, dealing and frequently smoking cigarettes, and drinking primarily red wine. She has a boyfriend, Jake, who is a southern gun and makes both Pudge and the Colonel feel an enormous sense of jealousy.

Other side characters include Takumi, the perverted Japanese exchange student who proudly bears his fox hat upon his head, Lara, the Romanian-American who ends up dating Pudge for a short while, and the "Eagle," the strict, uptight school dean.

There are tons of conflicts in this novel, but the primary one being that Pudge, being the newbie, needs to catch up with social life at Culver Creek. You probably have already guessed the main setting, being Culver Creek. It is an older Boarding School, bearing a hexagonal-shaped campus. (and it also serves the best fried bean burritos you will ever find)

A good literary connection to this work would be something like Grey's Anatomy or any other drama/soap opera that takes place primarily in a certain setting. There are many dormitory dramas out there on television, but I'm not all that familiar with any of them.