Wednesday, September 24, 2014

I have just started reading Looking For Alaska by John Green for my choice pleasure book. I have read three books by him, and I think that this one will be my favorite. John Green does a really good job of describing the characters. Miles Halter, the main character, is very life-like. He seems like your average teenager so I can really relate to him. I would definitely recommend this book to teens of all sorts! I would also recommend this book to teens who like to read a little bit of a challenging text.

So far in Looking for Alaska, Miles Halter is moving to Culvers Creek Preparatory School for his sophomore year of high school. He is a scrawny boy with not that many friends. He is ready to leave his parents and start a new life of his own! When he gets to Culvers Creek, he meets his roommate, Chip, nicknamed "The Colonel." The Colonel is rough; he smokes drinks, curses, and goes to wild parties, and he nicknames Miles,"Pudge." Miles instantly get influenced by Chip and he starts smoking too, just to "fit in."

Chip introduces Pudge to his friends, Takumi, Lara (Who had a crush on Miles), and... Alaska Young. On page 14 Pudge thought, "but I barely heard him because the hottest girl in all of human history was standing before me in cutoff jeans and a peach tank top." They all became like a squad. They always smoked with each other. One day though, "The Eagle" (the dean of the school) catches them smoking but Alaska totally takes the blame! Pudge later finds out that she took the blame because she ratted out Myra and Paul (who were caught in bed together after curfew), and Alaska feels really bad about that so she feels she has to make up for it. Nobody dares telling The Colonel about what Alaska did, because basically his motto is, "Don't rat." But who knows? Will someone tell Chip the truth?
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Saturday, September 20, 2014

 
I just finished reading Papertowns, by John Green. I liked it overall but the middle of he book got a little boring, but I forced myself to keep reading. I am glad that I stuck with it though... because the ending was very touching, and sad, but definitely worth the read. If you have not yet read Papertowns, then I would suggest that you do not keep reading this post (SPOILER ALERT)!

If u did not read my earlier posts about Papertowns, I will catch you up:) So basically, there is this boy named, Quentin who is in love with a girl named Margo. He has been ever since they were little. Margo is a very mysterious and unpredictable girl, so it is not surprising when she completely disappears off the face of this earth. But, Margo does leave behind clues... and Quentin thinks that she left them just for him. So he thinks it is his responsibility to find her. On page 285 Margo says to Quentin, "'How the heck did you even find me' ... 'Song Of Myself,' I say. 'Guthrie took me to Whitman. Whitman took me to the door. The door took me to the minimall. We figured out how to read the painted-over graffiti. I didn't understand paper towns; it can also mean subdivisions that never got built, and so I thought you had gone to one and were never coming back... So I went to a bunch of them, looking for you. But then I matched the map in the gift shop to the thumbtack holes. I started reading the poem more closely... I found Agloe from the map, saw your comment on the talk page of Omnictionary, skipped graduation, and drove here.'"

Quentin loved Margo so much that he drove twenty-one straight hours, with his friends to be with her, and to make sure she was alive. When he finally found her, Margo was a little upset. Margo did not want anyone to find her. But then, when Quentin started talking to her, she realized how much she missed him and wanted Quentin to run away with her too. Quentin declined tough, no matter how much he loved her. He had a life back in Florida.

I think the theme of this story was to sometimes let go of what you love. Sometimes life does not always give you what you want... and sometimes you just have to be okay with that.  On page 305 it says, "The physical space between us evaporates. We play our broken strings of our instruments one last time."

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Right now, I am almost midway through Papertowns by John Green. This book is realistic fiction, like I mentioned before... but it is also a mystery novel. This is very different for me because I do not usually read mystery novels. I usually don't like them, but surprisingly, I love Papertowns! If you are into solving mysteries and investigating clues then I would definitely check this book out!

Currently, in Papertowns Margo has run away! She's run away many times in the past but this is the longest she has been gone. Quentin feels like it is his responsibility to find her. Margo leaves clues just for him. Margo leaves him a clue that leads Quentin to her room where he finds a book full of highlighted quotes. In one of the quotes she tells him to "unscrew the lock from the door and unscrew the door itself from the jamb." So, When Quentin does this he finds out that Margo is hidden in Christmas, Florida.

The next morning Quentin quickly rushes to Florida with his buddies, Ben and Radar. When they arrive at there destination they discover it is an abandoned mall. Quentin starts to panic because on page 139 he says, "it seemed to me that this is not a place you go to live. It was a place you go to die." When Margo and Quentin were kids they once found a dead man slumped next to a tree at the park. Quentin is worried that he will find Margo like that at the mall. He is determined to find her alive.


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