Forgiving In John Green's Novel 'Looking For Alaska'

“You cannot open a book without learning something.” This old Irish Proverb is true in my case, I did learn something. In John Green’s novel “Looking for Alaska” (223) I learned that to forgive you need to forget and to forget you need to forgive. It is an ongoing cycle about forgive and forget in the everyday life of Miles Halter.

“Looking for Alaska” was written in Miles Halter’s point of view, you know all of his actions and thoughts. Miles Halter is a new student at Culver Creek High school. He attends the school after his father, looking for a “Great perhaps.” As he gets settled in his room, his roommate of small stature who goes by the name of The Colonel. The Colonel’s real name is Chip Martin, he has attended Culver creek since he was a freshman and is now a Junior. Chip calls Miles “Pudge” to be ironic about his “scrawny” weight. Chip later took Miles to Alaska Young, who smokes and drinks way too much. Miles smokes his first cigarette with Alaska. They all pull pranks on people in the school, especially the “Weekday Warriors”, or the rich popular kids in the school. One night, after a heavy

In this novel, Miles memorized last words of famous people, John Green also memorizes last words of famous people and has many videos on YouTube about it. He started writing the book just after 9/11, and published it in March of 2005. John Green made the chapter titles in days to and after an event that was huge in the characters lives. He saw that christians base years from when Jesus was born, and Muslims base their years off from when they moved from Mecca to Medina, indicating a huge part in their lives. John Green based his book on his own life, and what has happened in his high school years. A lot of his old classmates have come up to him and told him that they feel that “Looking for Alaska” reflected too much on their lives and what happened to them in his old school of Indian