Looking for Alaska
1.) Discuss a major conflict in the text.
-One night, Alaska Young (the protagonist) becomes very depressed due to her forgetting that it was the anniversary of her mother’s death. She decides to leave campus in the middle of the night. To make matters worse, she has been drinking alcohol beforehand. This results to her dying in a terrible car crash. The book centers around her, before and after the crash.
2.) Explain the significance of the book’s title.
-Following Alaska’s death, her friends search for an explanation to why she became depressed that night and whether it was a suicide or not.
3.) Select five quotes from the book you can relate to.
-“How will I ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering!” I’m sure anyone…
Those two amazing people are my best friends and they’re astonishing. They’ve made me the person I am today, with their positivity and words of courage. Miles uses this to describe him and Alaska’s friendship. Alaska has all this knowledge and answers to questions Miles hasn’t even thought of yet. He feels quite small around her at first but grows out of that as the book progresses.
4.) Analyze the book for its literary merit.
-What I learned from Looking for Alaska is that you must move on. Yes, bad things do happen, not everything is rainbow and sunshine. But, you must keep going forward. Don’t ever stop or look back. There are beautiful things ahead of you that are out of sight for now but will be face-to-face one day.
5.) What is the message/theme of this book?
-In hard times, friends will always be there. Friendship is the most important thing in life. Without it, you are lonely and have no one to vent to. In her rough moments, Alaska exposes the real her to Miles and speaks her feelings. She puts his trust into him because she sees something kind in him. When Miles begins to date a girl, he goes to Alaska to give him dating advice. And finally, after Alaska’s passing, Miles and his friend Chip Martin must rely on each other for support. They cope and console with one…
