WARNING!! Spoilers for John Green's Looking for Alaska. After my shameless plugging for his books in previous posts, don't read this one if you're

going to read the book.

To get started: I am frightened a little bit by how much I see myself in the character of Alaska Young. Maybe not so flirty, not so bad-ass, but in her mood swings, the way she talks, all of it. She just is like me. Or, maybe I see the person I could be. I could be, as the back of the book calls it, "gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up and utterly fascinating". Maybe I just want to be like her. (Maybe I couldn't pull of the gorgeous, I dunno.)

Pudge (or, Miles, I suppose) says that she had a strength that he didn't - that she found a way out of the "labyrinth", and that he was too scared to. I disagree wholeheartedly. I believe that Alaska lacked his courage. The courage to, through it all, just hold on. Speaking as someone who knows how hard it is just to stop breathing (I couldn't do it) I know the kind of courage it takes to just stick it out. My best friend (one of them) wanted to kill herself this year. I saw in her the kind of courage that no one could ever find anywhere else. Suicide is not, as some people see it, a brave act. It is selfish, and it is cowardly.

The back of the book has some discussion questions. One of them asks what do you think of the Great Perhaps, and what do you think of the "labyrinth". I think the only way out of the labyrinth is to find the Great Perhaps.

I'm still not sure if I believe in Heaven. I want to, because then I get to see Geoffrey again. And for a long time, that thought was the only thing that kept me clinging to God. But I want to be like that woman, proclaiming that a man should not love God for want of Heaven of fear of Hell, but because he is God. That is why I want to believe in God. Maybe Heaven is the Great Perhaps. Then again, maybe it's not. Maybe going to Oxford is my Great Perhaps. Maybe moving to Australia is the Cherd's Great Perhaps. Maybe Heaven was Geoffrey's Great Perhaps.

You'll never know if you've gotten to the Great Perhaps, if you've gotten out of the "labyrinth" until you get there, I suppose.

And now that I have to be at the Radish's in less than 12 hours, maybe I should at least make an attempt to sleep, even though I'm not in the least bit sleepy. Today has been a sit and read day. I read two provocative novels, and I think I need to think and unwind a bit more before I sleep. Who knows.

I go to seek the Great Perhaps (Francois Rabelais)

Jennie.Rae