Entry Four- Summer Assignment

Out of all the Michael L. Printz Award list of books I chose Looking for Alaska by John Greene because for one the cover seemed like it was different from the other books he had written in the past.  What also caught my attention to this novel was the way it said BEFORE in big letters in front of the first page when the book starts, like it was going back to the life that has already happened previously.  As well as the cover catching my attention, the back did too, the way it doesn’t seem to summarize the book but give what the characters such as Miles are seeking and what is happening n his life before everything happened. Personally I had a connection after reading because it actually taught me a lesson which was the little things can make a big difference, it took me the entire book to learn that, this book is worth a read to really anyone especially people who like a fast paced and drama filled book. Throughout this novel the character go through so much in such a small amount of time. The little things that happen to each of them lead up to some pretty big things that you have to read to find out what they are. Honestly, anyone would enjoy this book. Can you answer the question? How do you escape the labyrinth of suffering?

Entry Three- Summer Assignment

"When adults say,'Teenagers think they are invincible' with that sly, stupid smile om their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot begin and cannot end, and so in cannot fail. So I know she forgives me,just as I forgive her. Thomas Edison's last words were: 'It's very beautiful over there.' I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful."

At the moment when this section is happening is on page 220-221, which is the end of the book. This is when Miles, Takumi, and the Colonel had just completed the ultimate prank that Alaska had planned to do before she left the school, and since her disappearance, they all thought in honor of Alaska that they should be the ones to go through with the plans Alaska had written and left behind when she left campus. Also a little earlier in the book in Miles' religion class they had to write a paper answering the question "How do we escape this labyrinth of suffering?" which was what Alaska had asked before her passing. This section of the book was featured in the essay that Miles "Pudge" Halter had written to answer that specific question. 

Entry Two- Summer Assignment

The characters in Looking for Alaska vary a lot from each other because some of them are more complex and we have learned more about them than some. The main character Miles "Pudge" Halter is more complex, since at the beginning of the book you get his life story in a way. Miles wants to find him self and find where he could fit in and be more himself rather than being the lonely kid with two friends at his other school, he wants to find a crowd of people where he can be who he wants to be, when it says "Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were 'I go to seek a Great Perhaps.' That's why i'm going. So i don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.."(Green 5). Miles also desires to learn more of who Alaska is since she seems more mysterious and out there, since no one will tell him about her, he wants to find out for himself.
Chip Martin is Miles' roommate, he is know by his friends as "Colonel". Colonel wants to find the people that mess with him or his friends and take them down and ruin their "little lives". Besides that he really doesn't want much more. While reading he says to Miles "...because we need to figure out why they're so, uh, pissed at me. And then we need to go ahead and start thinking about how we're going to ruin their miserable little lives"(Green 29). 
Alaska Young is the mysterious, young , and beautiful girl that keeps Miles on his toes and thinking "what's she up to?" or "what is up with her?"  Her wants and desires are to escape the "labyrinth of suffering". At one point Alaska is talking about Simon Bolivar and his famous last words about a labyrinth and Miles asks " So what's a labyrinth?" and she replies " That's the mystery, isn't it? Is the labyrinth living or dying? Which is he trying to escape-- the world or the end of it?"(Green 19).Looking for Alaska: Character Analysis and the Labyrinth

Lastly Kevin, he isn't very developed yet, and his wants and desires are yet to be determined.

The theme that I've noticed that has developed the most would be expect the unexpected, you can see that when it says " --probably for the first time in my life-- the fear and excitement of living in a place where you never know what's going to happen or when" (Green 29). 

The structure of Looking for Alaska is in the first person, where the story is told by the point of view of one character at a time. Though, the story is mainly told in the point of view of Miles. The structure isn't really one solid thing, more of a variation of any different types of book structures.

Entry One- Summer Assignment

The book I chose to read this summer is Looking for Alaska by John Green. In my book the major characters are Miles "Pudge" Halter, Chip Martin also known as "the Colonel",Alaska, and Kevin.
The main character is Miles who is a unsocial, lonely, yet very ambitious, skinny 16 year old as when it says " My skinniness always surprised me: My thin arms didn't seem to get much bigger as they moved from wrist to shoulder my chest lacked any hint of either fat or muscle...."(Green 9). That is looking for his "Great Perhaps.  The setting begins in hot and humid Florida where Miles lives with his parents. Then following in his dad's footsteps and to start over a new life wanted to transfer to Culver Creek Preparatory School. The place that Miles stayed in was a place with " Six one-story buildings, each with sixteen dorm rooms," that "were arranged in a hexagon around a larger circle of grass" (Green 7-8). So the main conflict is that when Miles begins to hang out with "the Colonel" more he meets the rest of his friends which included a girl named Alaska, as he knew about her longer, the more and more interested he came in her, Miles wanted to know her story and what she was all about. When it says " Alaska sat directly across from me in the circle of desks, but she didn't look at me once the entire class, even though I could notice little but her..." (Green 30). This shows that the more he sees her the more he needs to know about her, and Alaska won't say a word to him, also no one will say one word about her to him. I've so far read just the beginning of the book but i predict sometime when i get more into the book that Miles will find out more about Alaska and maybe something no one else knows about. A connection that i noticed while reading was when Chip "Colonel" says to Miles while sitting by the lake on the beach " Yeah, but he doesn't really go into blitzkrieg mode until classes start," ( Green 17). This connection is to history back to the term meaning "lightning war" by the Germans during World War Two.

Book Review

The book I am reviewing is “Shrimp” by Rachel Cohn. This book is fiction but it could also call it realistic fiction. This book is the second in its 3 book series. Shrimp is about an already developed character named Cyd Charisse who just returned from New York, where the last book left off. In this book Cyd charisse returns from New York and is ready to get the love of her life back Shrimp. To briefly summarize this book, a girl named Cyd Charisse nicknamed CC is trying to get whom she believes is the love of her life, Shrimp back. Along the way she meets a girl named Helen who becomes her best friend and Alexi her driver’s nephew who she hates at the beginning of the book but by the end she grows to appreciate. She also befriends the least excepted character Autumn who is the reason for her and Shrimps break up in the first place. I think this book was very interesting. I like how they setup the characters like Alexi the horrible as CC calls him I like how once they introduced him I thought immediately that oh of course they are going to hook up or something in that manner . I am not going to give it away but you will be surprised about what happens between them, I was. This book was descriptive enough it was enough for me to visualize but not too much where it gets boring. Like one scene stuck in my head is where something romantic may or may not happen with CC and Alexi. I also like too other scene with one where CC gets high and goes looking for munchies at shrimps house and he brings her to the freezer for hot pockets and she kisses him but he tells her it just wants to be friends for now and then get into the sexual stuff later maybe. Then later in the book they still pretend to be “just friends” but they end up in CC`s shed and they begin to hook up and now this time Cyd turns Shrimp down and says he was right they should just be friends for right now. I think girls are the mostly candidate for reading this book because it is about a girl growing up and maturing so young girls can relate to her. I think you would like this book if you like the book series the Seven deadly Sins because they are both teen dramas in a less of Gossip girl kind a way its not about rich girls acting like idiots. Those are the people I would recommend this book too.

Letter to the Author

Dear Rachel Cohn, I am in the process of reading one of your books, Shrimp, I think that your style of writing is very different, i like it though, the way you organize the sentences and words makes me want to continue until the end. The book cover also was so divergent from the other books in the non-fiction genre, the cover really caught my eye with the surfer on it, it also made me think about what it could be about. The story itself so far is very interesting and very different from what I have read in the past, the writing in the book and how you worded it makes the book even better to me. I hope to be able to read more of your writing and I look forward to what you are going to write in the future. From, Natalie

Reason Behind Shrimp

The main reason I think Rachel Cohn wrote Shrimp because looking at the summaries of the other book she has written, she likes to be different, especially when it comes to the topic, style, characters, and her word choice and the order she chooses to put the in. The book Shrimp is very different in terms of all the things I said before, the word choice seems to not really be similar to any other books that I have read. Even though I have only read one of Rachel Cohn's books, the reviews and everything of her other book seem to be very similar to the way Shrimp is written. But i think the main reason Shrimp was written was to set itself from the other books in the non-fiction genre, Rachel Cohn wanted to stand out from the author's that have also written non-fiction stories. The story itself, you can tell was going to be different by what the cover looks like, and the first couple lines of the actual book.