Halfway There ~ Looking For Alaska

So far I'm really enjoying the story. It took me a little while to get into because the beginning of the book was kind of slow, but now it's really good. The start of the book made it kind of difficult to see where it was going, but once it got a couple of the plot points organized and I knew what the author was trying to do, I started to enjoy it more.

At first, it's hard to tell whether the main character, Miles (also known as Pudge), is going to achieve his original goal of making friends and finding a place to fit in. The characters he meets and the people he goes to school with are very hard to read. You can't tell whether they're teasing him to be mean or in a friendly way, but eventually, it becomes easy to tell who is on his side. The group that Pudge becomes a part of is a group of outcasts. They don't really fit in anywhere, but they're still very notable people at the school. His two closest friends are called the Colonel and Alaska. Alaska is the girl I was telling you about last post, the one Pudge falls in love with. The Colonel is Pudge's roommate. He treats Pudge poorly at the start of the book, but once they warm up to each other, they become really close friends. Alaska is the center of their group, the queen bee. She's full of wit and humor and throughout the book is shown to be quite the prankster. The group of kids loves to pull pranks on other kids at school and on the faculty. The story of the five of them is wound with disappointment and anger, but is truly a happy story because of the way they make the best out of everything.

There's one quote in the story that is the main subject and them. It says, "The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is learning to forgive." This quote was said by Alaska, and because all the kids have had quite rough pasts, they learn to get through it together. They use their pranks as a coping mechanism and learn to be happy together.

I'm at the midway point right now and I think I can predict what is going to happen. The book is seperated into two parts, before and after. At the end of Before, Alaska is drunk and wants desperately to leave the school. She makes her friends give her the car keys and she runs out. Pudge, who is narrating, says "We left. We did not say: Don't drive. You're drunk. We did not say: We aren't letting you in that care when you are upset. We did not say: We insist on going with you. We did not say: This can wait until tomorrow. Anything – everything – can wait." It's pretty clear from here what is going to happen, but I'm not going to put it in words because I'm still hoping it won't happen.

I'm wondering how the group will manage to get out of the labyrinth without Alaska. Will they all fall apart? Will they no longer be as strong without their fierce leader? What will they do without Alaska?

-Jenna