Reading Response: Looking for Alaska

Moira Griffin

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Reading Response: Looking for Alaska

            Have you ever wanted to change your life? Be someone different? Maybe happier, or more popular or funnier? Well many things in life can cause major changes, like love or birth or death, but we can also can also be changed in smaller ways by the people we meet or by the books we read. Looking for Alaska by John Green is a book that tells a heart-wrenching story about death, love, mystery and fear, with a character going through difficult changes in life.

            The story begins with Miles, the main character, alone at his own going away party. The party is to celebrate him leaving to go to a boarding school in Alabama. This is a big part in the story because it will show how Miles changes throughout the story, from a lonely and unconfident kid to someone who knows who he or she is and who feels more self-assured. Throughout the story Miles reflects character growth by meeting new people and trying new things.

            “I was more or less forced to invite all my ‘school friends’ i.e., the ragtag bunch of drama and English geeks I sat with by a social necessity in the cavernous cafeteria of my public school, and I knew they wouldn’t come,” says Miles on the first page when he is telling the reader about his going away party and how no one showed up. This quote introduces the character Miles as someone that doesn’t have any friends. So over time he develops this friendship with Alaska, her friends and other people. As his friendships grow he also grows and changes into someone more confident and social. In the next line, Miles mentions, “the Colonel (one of Miles’ friends) didn’t tell me where he was going to spend the evening he just shut the door behind him and left, so I guess I wasn’t welcome.” This quote shows that he automatically thinks he wasn’t invited because he didn’t know what Colonel was doing. This gives the impression that Miles is not that confident around his friends. Throughout the novel you can see Miles is able to socialize more and he begins to take down some of the walls he has built up over the years.

            Miles changes as a character in the story as the challenges he faces grow. Towards the end of the book Colonel says “But we will deal with those bastards, Pudge. I promise you. They will regret messing with one of my friends.” This shows that Miles, also known in the story as Pudge, has grown as a character because in the beginning of the book he does not really have any friends. For someone to call him a friend shows that Miles has developed stronger relationships. Miles has changed from someone who might have been more shy and timid to a person who is now more outgoing and sociable. In another section, Miles stands up for his new friend and says, “He walked out of the room, again just assuming I'd follow, and this time I did.“ In this case, Miles makes the decision, showing how he has developed as a character.

            In the end my opinion about the book Looking for Alaska is that it is remarkable and holds many different stories of both love and death. John Green wrote a beautiful book, which holds many wonders and many adventures that Miles goes through, but mainly the author shows Miles going through changes to find himself.