Looking Into the Perspective of Miles Halter Experiencing a Friend's Death

            Near the end of this summer I finished Looking for Alaska by John Green. Looking for Alaska is a fictional book written in the view of Miles “Pudge” Halter who is a rising junior at Culver Creek Boarding School. It takes place in modern day Alabama where Miles spends his first year after moving from Florida. Initially Pudge is not enthusiastic about going but he finds himself enjoying it more than expected. At his new school he finds new friends and goes on many trips with them. Although he has fun with his friends, near the end, one of Pudge’s closest friends Alaska, dies in a car accident.

            Pudge’s two closest friends are Alaska and “The Colonel.” To me they both have unique characteristics, but I think Alaska has more depth in her emotions overall. The trait that struck me the most about Alaska was her unique behavior. She always either had strong emotions or said something extremely distinctive. “If people were rain, I was drizzle, and she was a hurricane,” is how The Colonel described Alaska. I think this quote shows how influential Alaska is to The Colonel and I got a similar feeling while I was reading Looking for Alaska. One characteristic that Alaska has that contributes to her unique behavior is how she enjoys doing pranks and get into trouble. Alaska herself even said, “Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins a war.” In this quote Alaska is talking about the rivalry with the wealthier kids they have at school. Pudge and his friends always try to make better pranks than them and I think that Alaska shows her feelings about the pranks by showing that she is dedicated to doing the pranks.

            Near the end of the book Alaska dies in a car crash. When she dies it is sudden and not expected, which I think John Green did an excellent job building on. Pudge, Alaska, and The Colonel all were hanging out the night before she died, and unexpectedly in the middle of the night Alaska left them and said she needed to do something important. I think Green makes Alaska’s death extremely suspenseful with many hints at suicide but also against it. One example of where Green hints towards suicide is when he writes, “The whole passage was underlined in bleeding, water-soaked black ink. But there was another ink, this one a crisp blue, post-flood, and an arrow led from “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!" to a margin note written in her loop-heavy cursive: Straight & Fast.” In this quote Pudge reads an old note Alaska had written about a book with the quote, “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!” Miles had discussed the book with Alaska before, but they never talked about getting out straight and fast which hints at suicide. Although the book suggests suicide, Alaska was drunk the night she died and later they figured out her mother died on the same day and she was going to put flowers on her grave.

            Overall, I think Looking for Alaska is a well written story especially with the character’s interactions. Green always makes it seem like the conversations are from real people about real events. I also really enjoyed the setting of the story and the environment created around the scholarship kids being the rivals of the wealthier students. I would recommend this book to anybody who is interested in seeing a unique high school experience. I think I will most likely check out more John Green books in the future.