The end of the book

On Monday on my way to sport I finished reading “Looking for Alaska”. I had been so lost in the story that I almost missed my stop. The pages 191 until the end are very exciting and I enjoyed reading them. I have already assumed that the death of Alaska has to be concerned with her mother and in the end I was right.

I really had to laugh when I detected what kind of prank Miles, the Colonel, Takumi and Lara wanted to play on Speaker Day. But I think Alaska would have had a ball in succession to the show of Maxx and that the Eagle had to laugh too. I was pleased that the reader doesn’t get to know if Alaska’s death was an accident or a suicide. Because of that the reader has got the chance to think about her life and to form an opinion about her death.

However what I haven’t expected is the letter of Takumi. I am able to understand his situation and why he hasn’t said that he met Alaska the night before she died earlier but what I can’t understand is his anxiety. He should have talked to Miles and the Colonel personally and not like he did it write a letter and disappear for a few months. I can’t grasp his behaviour.

All in all I really liked reading “Looking for Alaska” although the second part of the book had been a little bit to long on a few passages.

Three phrases which I really liked:

p. 195 l. 16 – p. 196 l.12: “Everything that comes together falls apart,” the Old Man said. “Everything. The chair I’m sitting on. It was built, and so it will fall apart. I’m gonna fall apart, probably before this chair. And you’re gonna fall apart. The cells and organs and systems that make you you – they came together, grew together and so must fall apart. The Buddha knew one thing science didn’t prove for millennia after his death: Entropy increases. Things fall apart.”

[…]

And maybe that was the only answer we’d ever have. She fell apart because that’s what happens.

p. 217 ll. 19 – 21: But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbour, with all my crooked heart.

p. 219 ll. 25 – 28: 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. 

By Steffi