Grammar Thursday is Back!

I haven't posted a Grammar Thursday in a long time, but I have one today. The topic is punctuation and quotes.

The rule is simple: Punctuation always goes inside of quotes. No matter what.

If you need to know whether punctuation goes inside or outside of quotes, just remember this. PUNCTUATION ALWAYS GOES INSIDE OF QUOTES! You will never find a situation where punctuation doesn't go inside of quotes. If you do, please let me know, but I sincerely doubt you will.

Here's an example:

"I can't believe she said that," Martha said

Either way, punctuation goes inside of quotes. Sorry for being repetitive, but an astounding number of history and english teachers seemed to not know this simple rule, which is very disappointing, considering their professions.

Also, please comment if you happen upon this blog, whether it was a fortunate accident or if you actually read this because you like it.

Looking for Alaska

John Green, John Green, John Green. Ah. John Green, I have to tell you something. I know it might sound mean, but I don't really intend it to. You need to stop having main characters die in your books. You need to be able to explore character development through a different medium than death. I think that main characters dying makes things really interesting, and I usually like it, but I feel like the only real big conflicts and character change (the two points of a book) happen when Alaska dies. I know that it is much easier to write about character change when the characters are forced to go through the grieving process, but Johnny (do you like being called Johnny? Maybe Greeny is better), Johnny, sometimes the easy road isn't the best road. Here's a Dumbledore quote for you to take with you: "We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.” I looked that up just for you, Greeny. Time for you to go now.

Okay. To the actual book.

This book was about a boy. He went to high school, and was forced from the sidelines onto the field, right in the middle of the main event. And the main event was Alaska Young.

Before Miles (fondly known as Pudge — for obvious reasons — by his friends at school) met Alaska, he spent his days memorizing the last words of famous people. His life was dull and without meaning. He decided to go to a boarding school in search of a Great Perhaps — his words, not mine. But instead of finding a Great Perhaps, he finds Alaska. Alaska and her maze of suffering, her beautiful but destructive life.

Immediately — and I mean in the first day — Pudge changes from a caged-in nobody to a smoking, drinking member of a high school "gang." I use gang lightly. There is a rivalry between his group of friends and the rich kids at their boarding school. They play pranks on each other. Lots and lots of pranks. That's pretty much all they do. Well, that, smoking, and almost making out with Alaska.

Though this group almost gets into trouble many times, pulls many pranks, and pretty much spends every moment of every day with each other, their group bond doesn't grow at all. Pudge's status in the group never changed from when he first met them, to when he was setting off fireworks with them.

Finally, after slugging through about half of this book, you get to the section called "After." Personally, I think calling this section "after" is kind of a misnomer, because, though it is after Alaska dies, everything else is still pretty much the same. On the back of the book, there is a long description for what happens "before," and one line to say what happens "after." Apparently, after, nothing was ever the same.

I would strongly disagree with that, as Pudge changes the most as soon as he meets Alaska, and starts drinking and smoking. After Alaska dies, almost nothing changes.

Well, not nothing. Basically, all of the characters show an amount of emotion that doesn't correlate with their character's personality. If you started reading after Alaska's death, you would assume that they weren't playing pranks on each other, but sitting around talking about feelings.

I did like the second half of the book better than the first half, though. In the second half, Pudge and co. try to discover if Alaska committed suicide, or was just in a drunken accident. That part was written fairly well. I have to admit to you, John Green, that you actually wrote a few chapters that didn't make me want to vomit.

All in all, I wouldn't suggest this book to anyone, unless they were into reading most of a book to get to the good part. This book didn't explore any character development, but used death to pretend that it did. If you want to read a book about suicidal people and philosophy, I'm sure there's something better out there than Looking for Alaska by John Green.

P.S. I know people don't really read this blog, but if you do (whether it is accidental or on purpose) please leave a comment, so I know if anyone is seeing this. Thanks.