Reading Response

Eleanor and Park

In the book “Eleanor and Park’ by Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor and Park’s emotions change constantly throughout the book as their relationship develops. In the beginning, Eleanor and Park don’t talk to each other. In the middle, they talk a little, but they get nervous around each other when they do, and in the end, they are really comfortable in each other’s company.

Eleanor and Park first met when Eleanor was new at Park’s school and all the seats on the bus were taken. Park was reluctant to let Eleanor sit down, but no one else was giving her a seat. “ ‘ Sit down...Just sit down.’ ” They never talked. One day Eleanor was glancing around, and started reading Park’s comic book along with him. Park noticed, and moved it closer so she could see it better. Park started bring comic books to the bus to give to Eleanor to read when she got home. This is how is how their relationship bagn to blossom.

The first time they talked on the bus was the day when Park overslept and forgot to bring Eleanor the comics he was going to give her that day. He was looking at the doodles all over her school books and noticed the title of a song, and started a conversation about music. Eleanor said that she’d never heard the Smiths, but she wanted to. That night, Park made her a mix tape of his favorite songs by the Smiths. She said she didn’t have a walkman to listen to it on, so he let her borrow his. This indicates that Park is really starting to like her. He let her borrow his walkman no matter how many times she refused. He practically forced her to take it to listen to the tape he made her. During school, Eleanor counted down the periods until English, when she saw him in class. This tells us that Eleanor is excited to see him, so she started to like him too.

At the end of the book, Eleanor and Park are really comfortable together. It started when one day on the bus, Park held Eleanor’s hand. This is the first time they both realize the other likes them. Eleanor goes over to Park’s house and starts going over there almost everyday after school. Eleanor even feels comfortable enough with him to tell him about her stepdad who beats her mom, which she had never told anyone before. At the end of the book Park helps Eleanor run away from home to her uncles house, driving her far away from where they live. Once Eleanor and Park get more comfortable with each other, they open up to each other a lot more, and spend all the time they’re apart missing one another.

Reading Response

Looking For Alaska

By John Green

In the book Looking For Alaska by John Green one of the main themes is death. In the story, Miles (the main character) goes to boarding school and meets a girl named Alaska. When they first met, Alaska brought up something she read in a book: “‘Damn it, … How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!’” Throughout the rest of the book the author mentions this a lot. Miles and Alaska become good friends, and in the middle on the book, Alaska gets in a car crash and dies. When Alaska dies, they Miles and his friend find a note in her room that says ‘Straight and fast’. This leads Miles to think that the car crash was a suicide and not an accident at all. This effects Miles in many ways. He and his friends are now determined to figure out what lead her to commit suicide, or why she rushed off drunk in the middle of the night to go for a drive.

After Alaska died and Miles and his friends figured out that it was a suicide and why, it changed the way Miles viewed the world. Alaska realized she had forgotten her mother’s death, and she started crying and screaming and left her room drunk to visit her mother’s grave. On the way, there was an accident on the road and a police car with it’s sirens blaring and it’s lights flashing. Alaska drove past it and decided that forgetting her mom’s death was too much guilt to live with, so she drove straight and fast right into the police car, dying on impact. Miles thought a lot about the labyrinth. This was Alaska’s way of getting out - straight and fast.

Miles and his friends needed closure, they had to figure out Alaska’s motives to kill herself in a car crash. Once they did, they realized that life goes on for the rest of them, and they all still need to find a way out of the labyrinth.