May IRB

Looking for Alaska

This month I read Looking for Alaska by John Green. It was a great book and I would recommend anyone to read it. It is about a boy named Miles or “Pudge” who leaves his hometown where he is not very popular and doesn’t have many friends to go to a boarding school, Culver Creek. A lot happens to him while he’s there like he drinks alcohol and smokes on a daily basis and before he never did stuff like that. Also a lot of rule breaking. He also meets a girl, Alaska. She’s this mysterious girl who is on an emotional rollercoaster, loves to pull pranks and drink a lot of alcohol oh and she loves her boyfriend Jake. It all started after Thanksgiving break when Pudge stayed at Culver Creek instead of see his family because Alaska didn’t really have a family (long story). They snuck into people's rooms finding out what they hid from the Eagle-the school officer. They found  out a lot about people. Other than that they just spent a lot of time together but nothing ever happened like he wanted it to. The break was over and the big senior prank was coming up they were usually pretty lame pranks, so Alaska was planning to get revenge on them. It started with there group of friends and then setting off twenty or more fireworks, sending out bad progress reports and making people beloved hair blue. It all worked in their favor and they celebrated by drinking lots of alcohol. Later that night Alaska got a call from someone and said she had to go but she never returned…

I noticed that John Green wrote this book in Pudge's point of view and if other characters talked it was in quotations. Green also counted down the days because the book is divided into two different parts before and after. So it counts down from from one hundred thirty-six days to the day of Alaska's disappearance and then in the after it starts from two days after and stops at one hundred thirty-six days later. I think he wrote the book like this because in the before part it kind of is suspenseful when you're trying to find out why he’s counting the days before, and while reading the after he wrote it like that to show how much his emotions and self changed over the same amount of days that he met her.

One thing that surprised me was when I read what happened to Alaska but I can’t tell you or else it will spoil the whole book another thing that surprised me was when Pudge decided to stay home for Thanksgiving break instead of seeing his family because if it were me I would leave in a heartbeat to see my family. I liked this whole book overall because it was very easy to relate to but there were also some things that left me thinking. For once I actually looked forward to reading a book. One thing that I didn’t like about the book is some of the choices that they made and also when the whole book takes a turn it was hard to read on.

This book taught me that  you should never go through battles alone,  find a good group of friends that will support you and be there for you through everything. I also learned that you should appreciate the moments you have, Pudge always talks about “The great perhaps” and he realized after Alaska was gone he was experiencing it and now he misses it all. I think the theme is you should never take something or someone for granted because something could go terribly wrong and you may never see them again

While reading this book I felt happy, sad, grief towards Pudge and surprised. My question that will probably never be answered and so many people are wondering but why did Alaska for what she did in the first place? And who was the call from the night she went missing? There are rumors going around that a movie will be coming out soon from this book and I will definitely go see it. This book was an amazing book I laughed a lot and almost cried a couple of times but  I would recommend it to anyone my age or older. I loved this book!