The (Sad) End ~ Looking For Alaska

I was unfortunately right. (*Spoiler alert*) Alaska died. It made for quite a sad second half of the book, but also a very interesting one. The first couple of chapters after Alaska's death were very depressing. The Colonel and Pudge moped around for weeks before they finally began to regain energy.

Once Pudge was finally in a better mood, he decided he wanted to get to the bottom of it. He wanted to learn why it was so urgent for Alaska to leave in the car that night. He went on an investigation looking for clues that lead him to answers. Although Pudge never does actually learn the reason behind Alaska's death, he does find other answers. He learns they way out of the labyrinth and together him and his friends hold the most legendary senior prank in their school's history. After doing a little research, I learned that John Green was part of a boarding school class that held a very similar prank which is outline in the video to the right. (Warning: it is somewhat explicit)

The last paragraph of the book went as follows: "Thomas Edison's last words were, 'It's very beautiful over there.' I don't know where there is, but I know it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful." I thought this quote was a very appropriate wrap-up to the book. The one unique thing about Pudge is that he knows many famous people's last words. The Thomas Edison quote helps to show that even though Alaska isn't there, he knows she's not really gone. I think it was very crucial for the characters to learn this because otherwise their lives would've fallen apart. They may not have ever gotten over the death of their friend and found ways to make it bring them closer together. I found it very touching that Alaska played such an influential role in the lives of everyone around her.

I'd definitely recommend this book. It's an easy read, but it's a very enjoyable one. It's a touching story of high schoolers who learn to let life's hardships teach them rather than bringing them down.

-Jenna

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

Looking For Alaska ~ John Green

Okay, so my last book I'm really excited for. Looking For Alaska was one of the most popular books last year and John Green is a very famous writer. I have to be honest, I've never read The Fault in Our Stars (his most famous book), but I have heard that it's a little hyped up. Is that true? Oh well, that's not the book I'm reading anyway. Looking For Alaska is about a boy who transfers to a boarding school. All his life he didn't really fit in anywhere and he was hoping that by going to a boarding school, he might finally find his place in the world. While there, he meets a girl named Alaska Young and falls for her, but she does not reciprocate. The book is all about Miles' experiences that year at his school and the ways his life changed that year. I think it's going to be a pretty easy read because it is a YA novel, but I'm still really looking forward to it.

-Jenna

WORD COUNT: 262

The End ~ Jellicoe Road

It all makes sense now!!! I'm going to warn you now, if you ever think you might read this book DO NOT READ THIS. I'm going to totally spoil the book in the next couple hundred of words because that's the only way I can really explain it.

So it all connects now. The story that was being told in between chapters was the story of Taylor's parents when they were at the Jellicoe Road. Hannah is one of the characters in the story and she left because she had to go see Taylor's mom who was on her death bed. Another character that I didn't mention in the last post is called the Brigadier (they rarely refer to him by his name). The Brigadier was a mysterious character for most of the book because Taylor once tried to run away from Jellicoe and the Brigadier got her and brought her back and Taylor was never quite sure why. Well now we know. It's because the Brigadier was another one of the five in the story of Taylor's parents.

The war, Taylor and her friends discovered, was never actually supposed to tear the three groups apart, but rather bring them together. They continued to let the younger kids think what they wanted about the war, but became Taylor and her friends became very good friends with the other Cadets and Townies. This issue was resolved because Taylor finally learned that her parents had been the ones to come up with the territory wars because they had been bored one summer and wanted something to do.

I won't tell you how it ends, but I will say that it was good. I really appreciated the complexity of the connections in this story. Everything Marchetta wrote had a meaning because it all related back to something else and a bigger picture. Nothing in the story was there simply for effect, it was all there to help Taylor learn about her family's history.

There was another quote in this section that I really thought helped provide and view into Taylor's mind. Taylor was talking to Jonah Griggs (a Cadet), "'What do you want from me?' he asks. What I want from every person in my life, I want to tell him. More." I think this really shows another one of the weaknesses that Taylor has. Toward the middle of the second half of the book, Taylor started to break down. She didn't understand why Hannah was gone and why her mother hadn't loved her enough to keep her. She was confused about why everyone in her life kept neglecting her. She wanted more. This, I felt, was the turning point in the story when Taylor finally started to learn things. She finally told people what she wanted from them and they did it. She started to learn the connections between Hannah, the Brigadier and her mother and why it was so important that she stay at the Jellicoe Road.

At this point, I can officially say that I would recommend this book. I think that it will definetely help if you have a little bit of prior knowledge of what the book's about because it was confusing at the start. Other than that, I was pleasantly surprised by the story and appreciated that many complexities that were mixed into it.

-Jenna

Half Way There (And Really Confused) ~ Jellicoe Road

So I was right, the whole school divisions thing is really confusing me. From what I can gather, there's three groups: Townies, Cadets, and Taylor's group. Taylor's group doesn't really have an official name, they're just the boarding school kids. The Townies are the kids that live in Jellicoe and go to the local public high school. The Cadets are kids that are there for a summer bootcamp program. I think that what's going on is that, as I said before, Hannah goes missing and Taylor is trying to figure out where she is. Taylor got dropped off on the Jellicoe Road when she was eleven and Hannah took her in, so Taylor wants desperately to find Hannah.

In between chapters in Taylor's point of view, there seems to be some kind of fictional story mixed in. What is confusing about this story is that it's so similar to what is happening in the book. The 'fictional' story is about a group of five kids who live either in Jellicoe, go to the Jellicoe Road boarding school, or are part of the Cadet program. These five kids are going through the same little war that Taylor and her friends are going through. It's hard to tell whether this story is actually fictional or not, but it seems to be getting more and more real.

I'm enjoying the book so far even though it is hard to follow at times. The way the mini story is mixed in with chapters of the main plot is nice. It gives you a little time to think about the main plot as well as expand on it a little and give some background of what the Jellicoe Road is like. It's nice to have a book every once in a while where the main character is easy to distinguish. The past two books that I've read haven't been specifically in the point of view of one person, but Jellicoe Road is told just from Taylor's point of view (except for during the mini story).

The book at times seems very simple and like an easy read, but at other times Melina Marchetta will strike you with something very profound and notable. For example, I found this quote very charming: "It's funny how you can forget everything except people loving you. Maybe that's why humans find it so hard getting over love affairs. It's not the pain they're getting over, it's the love." Although this quote may sound very romantic, I think it's more reflectant upon Taylor's feelings for her mother. Taylor feels mad at her mom for ditching her at a 7/11 on the Jellicoe Road one day, but at the same time, she knows she still loves her mom. She remembers the good times they shared, even though she does sometimes dwell on the dark days. She knows she would forgive her mom in a heartbeat and go running into her arms if she ever saw her again. I think this quote shows really well that even though Taylor acts very tough and strong, she can be broken and gotten to very easily.

So far, I'm not sure that I'd recommend the book because I'm still finding it somewhat confusing. I'll let you know next time whether I'd recommend it.

-Jenna

Jellicoe Road ~ Melina Marchetta

My next book on my list is Jellicoe Road. It's a story set in Australia about a girl, Taylor, who is abandoned by her mother who is a drug addict. She ends up at some kind of boarding school where she lives year round and is taken care of by the staff. One of adults at the school that Taylor cares most for disappears one day and Taylor is determined to find her. All throughout this, there is some kind of battle going on between divisions of the kids at school. I think this book will be interesting, although to be honest, I don't know much more about what it's about. You'll think I'm a weirdo, but I saw a quote from this story online and thought it was cute so I made my mom get it for me to read. I think this book may be a little confusing because I'm not quite sure that I'll be able to completely follow all of the plotlines. I don't really understand the whole divisions of the kids and their little war, but hopefully I'll figure that out and this will be a good book.

-Jenna 

PAGE COUNT – 419

The Great Gatsby ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

The next book on my list is, as you can see from the title of the post, The Great Gatsby. Does that book even need an introduction? Something tells me most of you will know what it is. But for the few who may not, The Great Gatsby is the famous book of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the 1920s, it's about Jay Gatsby, a rich partier who's in love with a married woman, and Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate narrating it all. I'm looking forward to this read very much. My sister took Mrs.Perlman's class last year and was obsessed with the book for months. As I read I will be spending much of the time attempting to avoid her highlights and annotations as I am borrowing her book. I'm very interested to see if I become as intrigued and obsessed as she did. I don't expect to be let down, so hopefully I don't have my hopes too high (though something tells me I don't).

-Jenna

PAGE COUNT – 180