Paranoid Park
by Blake Nelson
Guilty but not Charged
Paranoid Park Summary
Paranoid Park Summary
In the beginning of Paranoid Park Alex is a average teenage boy who enjoys skating and he has a girlfriend. He and his friend Jared are good skating friends and that is how Alex found out about Paranoid Park. Paranoid Park was this skate park in downtown Portland and is an underground street park which means there was no rules and nobody owned it. So later in the book when Jared left to go on a trip to meet up with some girls, Alex is left at Jared’s house with nothing to do. He goes to the skate park and meets a bunch of homeless people and a guy named Scratch. He and Scratch later go hop a train and they end up being found by a security guard. They get into a fight and the guard is left dead by an accident. Through the book he is left feeling guilty and paranoid while at the same time he has to deal with his family and his girlfriend.
Our Topic + Opinion
External Conflicts
His girlfriend is using him.
He accidentally murder the security guard.
Quotes
1. “But what were you supposed to do with that weight? Once it was on you? Just be a man? Just suck it up? Maybe you were. Maybe that was the real test. Maybe that is exactly the thing that made you a man: the ability to function with the worst possible secrets in your brain.”
2. “All the girls stared at me with hatred in their eyes. It was a big drama that had to be acted out. But deep down, nobody really cared. The other girls didn't care about Jennifer. Jennifer didn't care about me. I didn't care about anything.”
3. It was an accident. He didn't mean to kill the security guard with his skateboard - it was self-defense. But there's no one to back up his story. No one even knows he was at Paranoid Park. Should he confess, or can he get away with it? It's an ethical question no one should have to answer.
4. “I stared out the window. I imagined riding to the police station, my hands cuffed behind my back. That would be fine with me. It really would. I was done. There was no point now. My life sucked so much, I might as well get caught.”