TASK 8 -The theme

I believe the main themes in Looking for Alaska is growing up and self acceptance.

Throughout the book, we follow Miles’ progress in life, from leaving home to attend boarding school, to accepting his own destiny. We see him taking small and big choices, and taking the consequences of them. Miles, who earlier told himself that friendships didn’t matter, develops important friends, and learns to be dependent on them. We do also read about his heartbreaking experience of coping with Alaska’s death.

I haven’t finished the book yet, and I don’t know if my current interpretation of Miles will be the same when I have; I hope it is. I love that John Green gives Miles imperfections, these imperfections make him more three-dimensional and realistic. Even though the plot might seem extreme at first sight, John Green makes teenagers recognise themselves in Miles Halter.

TASK 7 – The point of view in “Looking for Alaska”

Looking for Alaska is written in first person; this positively affects the way the reader interprets the book. As I’ve mentioned on this blog before, the book is divided into days rather than chapters.  Every “day” nearly seems like a new episode in a Christmas-calendar on television. I would say that there’s several similarities:

Looking for Alaska is following Miles through the days leading up to one of the most important incidents in his life. But at the same time as you know that something big is going to happen, you’re also following his perspective as if the story was happening in the very moment you read it. I find this fascinating.

I love the fact that John Green has been able to do this, and I’m looking forward to reading more.

I’m unfortunately a fool for spoilers, so the first thing I did, when I started reading, was to google the main plot in the book…. I regret… But luckily we’re following Miles 136 days after “the day” as well 🙂

TASK 5 – The setting of “Looking for Alaska”

Looking for Alaska‘s setting appears parallel to our universe. Miles and the people around him behave just as if they were living ordinary lives in the early 21-century. The book was written in 2005, so there’s differences from today’s society technology wise. But other than that; I would say that Looking for Alaska‘s storyline is something that could easily have happened today.

I apologise the short blogpost, but I’ve had fever the last 2 days.

Sunniva

TASK 3 – Chapter one and Miles Halter

Looking for Alaska isn’t divided into chapters, but rather days.

In the first “chapter” we meet Miles Halter. I would say that Miles Halter doesn’t fit in, he has no close friends and one of his favourite hobbies is finding the last quotes of old writers, actors, philosophers etc. In this chapter Miles moves from Florida to Alabama, to attend a boarding school. We are quickly introduced to Miles’ new flatmate Chip Martin.

I feel like this is a good start. As I’ve mentioned earlier I have great expectations to every John Green book I read, and this is not an exception. Chapter 1 is called one hundred thirty-six days before, I find this quite interesting. What can possibly happen in 136 days?Well, I  guess I’ll have to read further and find out…

TASK 1 -Why I chose to read “Looking for Alaska”

I’ve chosen to read Looking for Alaska by the American author John Green. Throughout the last 15 years, Green has written several worldwide bestsellers such as The fault in our stars, An abundance of Kathrines and Paper Towns. Looking for Alaska was Green’s first novel, published in 2005.

My book-choice was actually very accidental. I had a completely different book in mind when I prepared for this project, the novel Orlando: A Biography by the British author Virginia Woolf. But when I started off reading it, I figured that the language was too challenging. At the first page the author had already used words such as “Moor” and “Thy”. I later heard that Looking for Alaska was in the prosess of being adapted into a movie, and I realised that I never got to read it.

I have great expectations to Looking for Alaska. I’ve read a few of Green’s books earlier, some who fulfilled the promises in the reviews and some (actually just one) who was awfully disappointing and boring. I personally think it’ll be a shame if Green’s first novel isn’t of the same quality as some of his later works.

I’ll hopefully get through the book by the movie premiere later this year!