Name: Emma Corazzelli

Book: Looking for Alaska

Author: John Green

Recently I finished the book Looking For Alaska, a 221 page realistic fiction novel by John Green. Green has written two other books, Paper Towns and The Fault In Our Stars. He has won the Printz award for Looking for Alaska and was number one on the New York Times bestselling list for The Fault In Our Stars. I decided to read this book because I have read his other two books and really liked them. I also heard great things from other people who have read them.

The novel is about a boy named Miles who goes to a boarding school for his junior year of high school. At his old school Miles doesn’t have any friends and is a lonely outcast. When he arrives at Culver Creek he instantly makes friends with his roommate, the colonel, his friends Alaska, Lara and Tukami. After staying at Culver Creek for about half a school year something tragic happens and after that nothing is ever the same.

The character development in this novel was surprising. I say this because at the start of the novel Miles has no friends but at his new school he makes them pretty fast. He also comes out of his shell more and hangs out with different people than expected. Alaska changed a lot too during the novel. Her personality pretty much stayed the same throughout the story but small details about her seemed to change ever since her and miles became closer. After the incident everyone changes a lot as well.

I liked the way the author separated the book into before and after segments. I liked this because it made me want to find out what the event is that he is writing about. I also like how before the event occurred the chapter names where always how many days there were left (ex: 26 days before) and the every chapter after the event was how many days has gone by (ex: 10 days after). I liked this because, to me it was like counting how many days until Miles life would change forever. It also showed how many days it took him to even start to become himself again.

The author includes this passage in the book “I’m not going to be one of those people who sits around talking about what they’re gonna do. I’m just gonna do it. Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. You spend your whole life stuck in a labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining the future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.” I choose this passage because before the incident Alaska was talking about the future and it makes me think how your ideas of the future can change really fast.

I would rate this book as a 6 out of ten because it wasn’t bad but i think his other books were much better.

Sincerely,

Emma