Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

Jeremy is the point-of-view character and protagonist of Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life. As a soon-to-be 13-year-old boy who has lived a sheltered life, Jeremy finds comfort in his daily routines and dislikes surprises. When he receives the box his dad left for him, Jeremy is thrust from his comfortable world into the unknown as he embarks on a quest for the missing keys. Along the way, Jeremy is faced with many decisions about his search and must ask himself what is most important to him—predictability or adventure. His quest for the meaning of life becomes a deeply personal journey of discovery in which he contemplates his own existence and the existence of life on Earth, showing how he grows and expands his worldview. The existential crisis Jeremy experiences toward the middle of the book represents the inevitability of change. Even without the search for the keys, it is unrealistic for Jeremy to expect that life would remain constant and mostly the same as he moves through his adolescence. Meeting new people and encountering new ideas is part of growing up, and Jeremy must overcome his fear of the unknown if he is to find the meaning he seeks.