Looking For Alaska: 2nd Entry

Looking For Alaska, written by the amazing author, John Green. This book has won a printz award and is a New York bestseller. This novel focuses on Miles and his new life at Culver Creek. The main characters in this book are: Miles (Pudge), Chip ( The Colonel) , Alaska, and Takumi.

Each characters wants/desires:

Pudge- Pudge has always wanted to be admired by Alaska Young, who he's always had a crush on since the first day he arrived at Culver Creek. He also seeks a “Great Perhaps,” and really, any adventure greater than the bored loneliness of high school and people who never appreciated his quirky love of last words.

The Colonel- The Colonel's dream is to buy his mother a nice 2-story house of her own. That's his dream because his mother lives in a trailer home and he wants to do something nice for her. 

Alaska- All Alaska wants is to live a fun life consisting of pranks and her boyfriend, Jake, who she loves very much. Alaska, unfortunately, is involved in bad situations and makes bad decisions like cheating on her boyfriend because she likes Pudge and Jake.

Takumi- He is in Alaska's group of friends but always feels left out and wants to be included in what they're doing more often. He also likes Alaska along with Pudge but it never works out because Alaska never showed any interest in him but she did in Pudge which made Takumi really jealous.

The theme is self- discovery. By the end of the book, almost every character has figured something out about themselves because of the experiences they have been through. Self discovery is much more present as the theme within Pudge because he is the character that undergoes the most change throughout the entire book. Pudge used to be shy, lonely and very excluded from social tendencies. Because of the Colonel and Alaska, Pudge becomes completely different and discovers his true self with their help. Alaska helps Pudge discover a lot about himself. When Alaska dies, Pudge discovers a new part of him filled with regret, guilt, love, sadness, bitterness and gets to understand himself better by experiencing all these new feelings and thoughts. The Colonel discovers a lot about himself after Alaska’s death also, parts of him he did not know he had. 

The structure of this book is what I really enjoyed. John Green introduced Pudge and as the book went on it also included information about other characters' lives and situations. The story built up to Alaska's death and led you to discover the theme of the book.