Review #2 Looking for Alaska, by John Green

I seem to be going through all of the John Green books, which is fine by me, he's a good author and I've read a lot of his books, well all of them apart from Let it Snow, which was one that he worked on with 2 other authors.

Today I shall be reviewing my favourite book of his, the first one that I read; Looking for Alaska, which was also his first book to be released.
Let the review begin.

                                                             *****

Firstly, this book is incredibly well written, and the story flows very well, the character development is also very good.

The plot focuses around the main character, Miles "Pudge" Halter, who moves into a boarding school, where his room mate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin is already in a friend group, which Pudge soon joins, meeting Alaska, a wild girl who The Colonel is in love with, it's debatable whether Pudge is as well, or not.

Pudge has a knack for remembering the last words of famous people, which is a the topic of conversation the first time that him and Alaska are in private together, where she teaches him a new set of last words. A recurring theme for the book is the last words of two people, Thomas Edisons ("It's very beautiful over there") and Francois Rabelais ("I go to seek a great perhaps") both of which create conversation in the book, mostly between Pudge and Alaska, who spend a great deal of time together.

The group are smokers, drinkers and users of profane language, all of which were highlighted for Miles not to do, by his parents when he was leaving in the opening scene. The group are also all prankers, and are keen to carry out one of the largest pranks their school has ever seen. This is where another character is introduced: Takumi Hikohito, a friend of the group, keen prankster and owner of the Fox hat, he and Pudge are tasked with setting off numerous fire crackers, waking up a lot of the school, but mainly the principal, who proceeds to chase after them, letting the Colonel and Alaska sneak into his office to carry out their part of the deal, changing a group of student's grades, and also putting hair dye into the shampoo of the students.

The book is set up well, however not in the usual chapter format, however, in a set of sequences running up to the turning point in the book, an event that changes the course of the story, of course, I'm not going to spoil it for you, you can read it for yourselves.This event, is near the end of the book, so there wasn't much afterwards, but everything changed; everything ended up in trying to find out the cause of the event.

The book resolves, which is always good, however nothing was quite the same following the incident that the first 2/3 of the book was leading up to.

The book is, as said, very well written, everything is good about it, I can't really find any bad points about it, and I will also highly recommend that you read it, if you haven't already.

Two in two days? that's madness

Yes, another post, this time another poem 'The Listener' inspired heavily by the Perks of Being a Wallflower, and is also designed for spoken word
-Craig

Listening, is a skill we all have although, let’s be honest not everyone uses that skill equally, some like to talk more and some like to listen more

that is where people tend to fall into two camps; you have the listeners, and you have the talkers. Everyone knows who the talkers are, they are the ones with the group of friends in the school playground, and you can often only hear one or two voices; the two prime talkers in the group, or if the talker is a little more friendly, more voices may be heard, but not everyone knows the listener

listeners are more quiet and don’t tend to join in discussion, another name for a listener is, a Wallflower, which is what we are, things that tend to stay outside of social groups, listening, rather than talking, and what we do say, is often more thought out and precise than what talkers say, however, wallflowers are often 1 or 2 conversations late, or can be. 

I tend to fall in the middle, for me, it’s a social thing, if I’m with people I like and know, I’m definitely a talker, however, throw me into a situation in which I don’t know anyone, I will tend to be a wallflower, is there a name for someone like me? someone in the middle, who is a socially controlled talker? 

can we make one? 

please?

'What made you realise you were bi?'

Well, I've escaped doing one of these for sometime, but I figured I'd give the story to those who were interested in it, my coming out 'story'

So, I came out to myself in the summer of 2012, however it goes back a few more years, actually, to about 2008/9, so that is where my story shall begin

So this is going back to early secondary school, at least year 8, maybe more realistically year 9 or maybe even year 10, so from 13-15 years of age for those of you outside of the UK, there was one lad who had joined the year group in year 8, and he was alright, somewhat of a good friend although a little too argumentative in my mind, I think now, looking back at it, he had a small case of small man's syndrome (Google it if you are unaware of what it is) but either way, slowly, I sort of developed a sort of attraction to him, nothing major, just your typical early highschool crush, he was good looking, not going to lie, he was good looking, although nothing developed out of it, it was pretty clear that he was straight, and of course, I didn't want to be seen as different, so I kept on going, not really thinking much on it. That is where this story freezes for a few years

We moved up from London to Norfolk, in July 2012, just having finished my GCSE exams, and since the whole incident with my friend, finding him attractive and all, I was starting to look at other males and finding them attractive, although no one from my school or anything like that, more just sort of actors and musicians (Notably, Chris Evans (Human Torch, Captain America)) and I started to pay a little less attention to females, and then in the summer of 2012, I was perusing through Tumblr, and I found a couple of LGBT blogs, and they sort of opened my eyes to bisexuality and what that was and such, and I realised that the crush I had on my friend, was a little more than I thought it was; it was my brain telling me that I was in fact a little bi, and as time has progressed, I've found that I'm a lot bi, I like to think of it as at least 75:25 males: females in terms of my attraction to each gender.

I started coming out to some close friends, those who I could trust, and those who I knew I could trust, and I eventually came out to my parents in mid 2013, they were supportive and still are, although they don't really talk about it a lot, which is good, I don't really like talking about it to them, although I will do with friends.

So yeah, that's me, that's my somewhat story, a little uninteresting, but whatever, it's what I have and it's what I'll be using when people ask me the question that is in the title of this post.
-Craig