Looking For Alaska: After

by John Green
Tired of his life at home, Miles Halter leaves for boarding school where he meets (and falls in love with) the impulsive and unpredictable Alaska Young. But when tragedy strikes, Miles begins to question his relationship with Alaska.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Before: 136-87 Days, Before: 84-0 Days, After

Here are links to our lists for other books by John Green: An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns, Will Grayson, Will Grayson, The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down
15 words 271 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. obscure
    make unclear or less visible
    Her hair falls over her face just enough to obscure her cheeks.
  2. insurmountable
    not capable of being overcome
    I fell asleep listening to his slow, even breaths, his stubbornness finally melting away in the face of insurmountable fatigue.
  3. dissipation
    breaking up and scattering by dispersion
    And I almost said, She buried it in the woods out by the soccer field, but I realized that the Colonel didn’t know, that she never took him to the edge of the woods and told him to dig for buried treasure, that she and I had shared that alone, and I kept it for myself like a keepsake, as if sharing the memory might lead to its dissipation.
  4. extol
    praise, glorify, or honor
    The Colonel and I said nothing, while a bunch of people who didn’t know Alaska extolled her virtues and professed to be devastated, and at first, it bothered me.
  5. bemoan
    regret strongly
    “I guess, but I wouldn’t bemoan the fact I never told her I loved her."
  6. embody
    represent in physical form
    For she had embodied the Great Perhaps—she had proved to me that it was worth it to leave behind my minor life for grander maybes, and now she was gone and with her my faith in perhaps.
  7. karma
    effects of one's actions that determine his or her destiny
    Buddhism, particularly as it is popularly practiced, promises improvement through karma.
  8. matriculate
    enroll as a student
    But you will respect the rules of this school, or you will matriculate someplace else.
  9. entropy
    energy in a system no longer available for mechanical work
    The Buddha knew one thing science didn’t prove for millennia after his death: Entropy increases.
  10. commence
    set in motion, cause to start
    And then something invisible snapped inside her, and that which had come together commenced to fall apart.
  11. aplomb
    great coolness and composure under strain
    The Eagle came in at noon on the nose, greeted the senior-class speaker—a former Alabama state attorney general—and then came over to Dr. Morse, who stood with great aplomb and half bowed as he shook the Eagle’s hand—maybe too formal—and the Eagle said, “We’re certainly very glad to have you here,” and Maxx replied, “Thank you."
  12. snooty
    overly conceited or arrogant
    He read directly from the speech without looking up, but he read with the confident, airy tone of a slightly snooty academic.
  13. disdainfully
    without respect
    The four of us returned to Room 43, aglow in the success of it, convinced that the Creek would never again see such a prank, and it didn’t even occur to me that I might get in trouble until the Eagle opened the door to our room and stood above us, and shook his head disdainfully.
  14. transcend
    be superior or better than some standard
    The Buddha held out hope that suffering could be transcended.
  15. bearable
    capable of being endured
    I still think that, sometimes, maybe “the afterlife” is just something we made up to ease the pain of loss, to make our time in the labyrinth bearable.
Created on Thu Oct 17 18:45:08 EDT 2013 (updated Thu Aug 07 16:23:45 EDT 2025)

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