Paranoid Park

It’s not unusual for teens to make mistakes and do things they regret. In Blake Nelson’s book, Paranoid Park the reader is introduced to a young boy named Alex who makes a terrible decision one night that has changed his whole view of his life. Alex’s friend Jared is gone for the weekend so Alex decides to go to Paranoid Park. He meets a guy there named Scratch, and Scratch somehow gets Alex to hop a local train. Alex does it but he doesn’t realize that his bad choices will lead to bad problems in his life that he will soon regret. Alex sees a cop; he knows he’s going to get in trouble for train hopping so he tries to hit the cop. The cop then has a very heartbreaking but crazy death. The cop gets run over by the train and everything then changes for Alex, he is now speechless because of the bad choice he made led to bad results.

            As the story progresses the author shows us how much Alex regrets hurting the cop because that caused the cop to fall into the train tracks and die. The first thing that Alex mentions is, “once everything was clean, I closed my eyes and let the hot water beat on my back and neck. I tried to relax, or at least stop shacking. But it was hopeless, I couldn’t stop”. This really shows how overwhelmed and how guilty Alex feels. Alex is basically so shocked that he can’t even stop shaking. Another thing that Alex says is, “then I started to cry. It happened suddenly and once it started I couldn’t stop”. This truly shows how one wrong choice can have you regretting situations forever. Alex is a tough skater, his emotions really start to come out and the author is really trying to show us that everybody makes mistakes but sometimes they can’t be fixed.

            Once the story really starts to get to an end, Alex’s decisions really start to get him terrified and paranoid because cops looking for a suspect. One thing Alex does is try to call his dad because he can’t keep the secret in anymore.  He says, “I hung up. But after that was stupid. What was I doing? I had to call my dad. I started to dial it again, and again I stopped. No, don’t involve your family”. Alex is frightened and he doesn’t know what to do. He really wants to tell somebody and get it off his chest but in reality he really shouldn’t. Alex also says, “I googled various combinations of murder, death, and a security guard with Portland Oregon. Nothing came up. I deleted my search history and logged off”. Alex is really trying to be secretive with everything. He is trying to avoid getting caught because he knows how bad the consequences would be. 

            All in all this book was amazing because there was always that thrill of is Alex getting caught or can he keep up with hiding? It’s all about making the right decision and thinking everything through. In the end you really just need to think about everything your about to say or do, because your actions can cause and lead into bigger problems. So try to think things through because you don’t want to make a bad decision that will change your life forever, like it did to Alex and like it does to many teens today.