Key Events
- Leaving home: When Miles first leaves his home to a new school and a new journey.
- Colonel: The two friends (Miles and Chip) Meet up for the first time.
- Alaska: Alaska is a big part of the book because she changes the way Miles lives through drugs, girls and self confidence.
- Initiation: When the weekend warriors throw Miles into the river, Miles gets a glimpse of who the enemy of the school is.
- Miles’s first girl: After Miles learns that Alaska is already with Jake, he goes after the next best girl-Lara. The three friends (Alaska, Miles and chip) all go to a baseball game with their dates.
- Smoking: When Miles has is first smoke; he turns from a child into more of an adult.
- Drinking: The secret alcohol stash and drinking the booze also has an effect on the characters because it makes them feel different than what they usually feel.
- The pranks: The pranks are used for two different reasons. Obviously one would be to prank, the other is used to late Alaska escape.
- Lara and Miles: After a while from their break-up the two decide to get back together again and Miles has a girl he actually cares about…until Alaska and him do their thing.
- “Doing their thing”: Alaska and Miles get drunk together and start making out until Alaska gets a phone call.
- Escaping the labyrinth: Alaska floors it into a police car and ends her life, making it devastating for Miles and her other friends.
- When Miles, Colonel, Takumi, Lara and Alaska go to the school Basketball game and Colonel makes one of the opposing teams players mad, the player throws the ball at them and hits Miles in the face which knocks him out briefly
- Thanksgiving: Chip introduces Miles to his family and Miles learns that they are trailer park.
- The finale: When Alaska dies at the end, everyone realizes how much they will miss her. Miles has the biggest effect of it because he loved her.