Looking For Alaska

 As many of you may already know, I am a major fan of John Green and Looking For Alaska did not disappoint. Girl meets boy. Boy meets girl. Girl and boy fall in love and live happily ever after. That is your typical stereotype of a romance. But not this romance. 

When Miles Halter's meets Alaska Young he soon learns that although she may be beautiful, clever and out going she also has a different side to her that he cannot quite work out. When reading I was struggling to find the words to describe Alaska Young...she had a real mystery side of her almost like she was hiding apart of herself. We are all guilty of that. There are parts of us we show to everyone, parts we show to just our close family and friends or there are parts we don't show anyone. We hide ourselves away until we are ready to show our full selves to the world. Miles creates his own version of her in his head that he falls in love with but is it love if he is not in love with the real her? 

Alaska's mysterious side continues on even after her passing. Her death is a real shock and even the way she died made it difficult to make out what caused her death and by that I mean no one could work out if her death was a suicide or a drunken car accident. Was it intentional? Or did Alaska just let her desire to have fun go too far. Her death was heartbreaking. When you read it if you have not already I would recommend a packet of tissues beside you. It felt so so real, you see how badly everyone is effected by her death and how much her close friends change and how different their daily lives become. The sad part is, Miles or any of her friends/family never got to say goodbye which makes you think... life can change so quickly and people can go so fast. It is a terrifying thought. 

After her death, Miles, Chip and Takumi all handle her death differently. Chip is determined to discover what really happened the night she died. Miles is too busy thinking of what could have been and regretting not telling Alaska he loves her. Takumi is very quiet until he eventually cracks and leaves a note telling the guys what he knows about her death. Although they all handle it in their own way they also have one thing in common. They blame themselves. They all immediately think it was their fault and they allow guilt to consume them. John Green seemed to want to get the message across that As humans we  always question what we could have done to control something but there are situations out of our control and we need to accept the fact that we cannot always fix things or stop things from happening instead we need to try and adapt to the changes in life, be patient with ourselves and others as well as focusing on what was rather than what could have been. 

There is so much more I could talk about but I wanted to focus in on Alaska and her death as if really has an important message. To end this post I am going to do my usual and leave you with a quote from the novel 'If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane'