Hello, my friends! This is a very important day for me. It is a very important day for a lot of you. This day is the LAST DAY OF MY JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL. Dang, it was hard. But we DID IT.
Alright, so since it has been awhile since I have written something literary on here, and since I didn't read terrible books this school year, we are going on a literary adventure of all the things I read for my English class!!!
The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The well-known play about the Salem Witch Trials, based on McCarthyism during the Cold War. This play is actually running a Broadway revival right now and is nominated for a few Tony awards, including Best Revival of a Play. I had heard things about The Crucible, which is one of the reasons it's great to have an older sibling go through school before you, and the things I heard intrigued me. The fact that everyone in a town can go crazy over things they have no actual proof about, and that they can accuse everyone, and if you don't agree with what they say you die, and almost no one actually was a witch but if not everyone agreed then most of the town would be dead? Can we talk about how this play was based on actual events? I don't know, that's just insane to me. But upon reading it, it's even better. The motives of the people in this text are insane... as well as the people themselves. I wrote an essay for the class that I almost shared with all of you, about Arthur Miller's idea of the common hero, how you don't have to be extraordinary to do great things, how John Proctor was a hero and just an average man at the same time. His desire to do good is absolutely incredible. I kept the book so I can read it again.
Alright, so now I am going to tell you about something that is rarely seen in the public English classroom: overachieving. I made an attempt that I really shouldn't have. I was going to finish reading The Forgotten Locket by Lisa Mangum before I started a new book for the quarter reading project. Stupid mistake. I did not use that book for the reading project like I should have. But anyway, it was still a good book and a good trilogy, one that was so complex I would probably have to reread it to fully understand it since I can't remember a good portion of the details as is, but one that I don't have enough interest in to reread. If you want to read my full review of The Forgotten Locket, you can find it here. So since I wasn't doing that book for the first quarter project, I needed to read the next book on my list very fast. Luckily, that was easy. It was a very short book and all I had to do was read nonstop: Christmas at Harrington's by Melody Carlson. It was a lot like a Hallmark movie in that it was a soft storyline that wasn't great or exciting but wasn't terrible or boring. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I wouldn't un-recommend it to anyone. You can read my full review of that book here.
During second quarter, my class read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Which is considered a must-read universally. At first I didn't quite understand the hype, but about halfway through, the hype made sense. While the rate my class had to read it at was wayyyy too fast, it was an insanely well-written book. However, this does not mean we all need to go into the insane Austen literary cycle where we all cry about why we're single. (The lesser reason that Austenland by Shannon Hale wasn't worth it.)
For the personal quarter reading project, I continued reading the next thing on my list. I started an attempt at the Sherlock Holmes series. Which was a great idea, but being a junior in high school, who has the time to do that? So instead I chose a book I had already read. (Something a little more common for a high school student to do.) The point of this project was to find a common motif in the book that we chose and in Pride and Prejudice. I had already wondered how I was going to do that with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, so maybe not finishing the book was a good thing. Instead I just thought of a book I could use that had the same motifs as Pride and Prejudice. I decided on Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. That's a really cute and high-quality story. It was a good book, and both books had motifs of marriage and social status, so it made a good book to analyze for a good grade. You can read the full review of Princess Academy here.
For the third quarter, the class read The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. While a good number of hipsters hate on Shakespeare because he's too cool, friendly reminder that he's one of the most witty writers of all time. Don't hate on Romeo and Juliet just because it's popular. It's quality.
With that quarter, I had to read a book off of a list that my teacher had made, books that were also movies, then watch the movie and write about the book and the adaption side by side. I chose Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. (That book was seriously overhyped. I didn't hate it; I wouldn't un-recommend it, but it's only kind of worth it. Maybe it was too much character for me, if that makes sense. I loved Morrie, but it was written with the intention that I would love him more than I did, and perhaps that's why I was bothered by it, because I didn't like him enough.) This was good for me because I'd read it before plus it was a super short read, so I would just reread the book, watch the movie, and write my paper on the two. I started rereading it, but the movie was near impossible to get ahold of. The only way we could find to get the movie was buying it for about fifty dollars, so obviously I chose a new book. I went with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, because I had read that book before and seen that movie before. (The one starring Winona Ryder. So I reread a chapter or two of the book (Ten out of ten as far as slacking goes) and watched the movie again. I wrote a paper on the way Beth's character differs between the book and the movie, which has bothered me since the first time I saw it. I hated it less this time, though. Maybe it just takes more time to understand. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yay! I made it to last quarter, by some miracle. We read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A book I'd always heard about, but I wasn't sure it would be that interesting. But it was intriguing enough just because I didn't know anything about it. A rich guy in the 1920's? Okay, sure. Why not? Yeah, it's a little bit bigger than a rich guy in the 1920's. The fact that no one knows who he is, and all the chaos that happens to them all once they do know. It was a really good book. I enjoyed it very much. But the whole thing is so screwed up, I don't think I'll read it again. Everyone and everything in that book is an insane amount of distorted. For my final exam I have to write an essay on that book. I'm talking about the color symbols (which are truly amazing) and how they represent the women that Nick and Gatsby admire and how they are viewed by each. Since I'm writing this post the day before I publish it, I have still yet to write the rough draft of that essay. Procrastination at its finest. However, I have a bomb thesis and some pretty good notes.
The plan really was to do a project on The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes this quarter, but again, who has time to read? So I did another book I had read, one that would just be easy to do a project on. So I chose I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter. This was a really good book, and the series as a whole is even better. Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I say this, and even I thought I was crazy when I thought it for the first time, but the Gallagher Girls series is the best-written series since J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. The way everything fits together is so impressive. Well done, Carter. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yeah, it was a good year, it was good literature. But that class was so dang hard, I'm glad I have time to read and write for myself now. As difficult as it was though, I actually learned a lot from it about writing and literature. (Don't tell my friends, they will make fun of me forever.) And I can only figure that it's helping me with all of the English classes I'm going to be taking in college. (Because I'm probably going to be taking A LOT of English classes in college.)
See you later, guys. I love you!
--Lizzo
Alright, so now I am going to tell you about something that is rarely seen in the public English classroom: overachieving. I made an attempt that I really shouldn't have. I was going to finish reading The Forgotten Locket by Lisa Mangum before I started a new book for the quarter reading project. Stupid mistake. I did not use that book for the reading project like I should have. But anyway, it was still a good book and a good trilogy, one that was so complex I would probably have to reread it to fully understand it since I can't remember a good portion of the details as is, but one that I don't have enough interest in to reread. If you want to read my full review of The Forgotten Locket, you can find it here. So since I wasn't doing that book for the first quarter project, I needed to read the next book on my list very fast. Luckily, that was easy. It was a very short book and all I had to do was read nonstop: Christmas at Harrington's by Melody Carlson. It was a lot like a Hallmark movie in that it was a soft storyline that wasn't great or exciting but wasn't terrible or boring. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I wouldn't un-recommend it to anyone. You can read my full review of that book here.
During second quarter, my class read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Which is considered a must-read universally. At first I didn't quite understand the hype, but about halfway through, the hype made sense. While the rate my class had to read it at was wayyyy too fast, it was an insanely well-written book. However, this does not mean we all need to go into the insane Austen literary cycle where we all cry about why we're single. (The lesser reason that Austenland by Shannon Hale wasn't worth it.)
For the personal quarter reading project, I continued reading the next thing on my list. I started an attempt at the Sherlock Holmes series. Which was a great idea, but being a junior in high school, who has the time to do that? So instead I chose a book I had already read. (Something a little more common for a high school student to do.) The point of this project was to find a common motif in the book that we chose and in Pride and Prejudice. I had already wondered how I was going to do that with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, so maybe not finishing the book was a good thing. Instead I just thought of a book I could use that had the same motifs as Pride and Prejudice. I decided on Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. That's a really cute and high-quality story. It was a good book, and both books had motifs of marriage and social status, so it made a good book to analyze for a good grade. You can read the full review of Princess Academy here.
For the third quarter, the class read The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. While a good number of hipsters hate on Shakespeare because he's too cool, friendly reminder that he's one of the most witty writers of all time. Don't hate on Romeo and Juliet just because it's popular. It's quality.
With that quarter, I had to read a book off of a list that my teacher had made, books that were also movies, then watch the movie and write about the book and the adaption side by side. I chose Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom. (That book was seriously overhyped. I didn't hate it; I wouldn't un-recommend it, but it's only kind of worth it. Maybe it was too much character for me, if that makes sense. I loved Morrie, but it was written with the intention that I would love him more than I did, and perhaps that's why I was bothered by it, because I didn't like him enough.) This was good for me because I'd read it before plus it was a super short read, so I would just reread the book, watch the movie, and write my paper on the two. I started rereading it, but the movie was near impossible to get ahold of. The only way we could find to get the movie was buying it for about fifty dollars, so obviously I chose a new book. I went with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, because I had read that book before and seen that movie before. (The one starring Winona Ryder. So I reread a chapter or two of the book (Ten out of ten as far as slacking goes) and watched the movie again. I wrote a paper on the way Beth's character differs between the book and the movie, which has bothered me since the first time I saw it. I hated it less this time, though. Maybe it just takes more time to understand. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yay! I made it to last quarter, by some miracle. We read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A book I'd always heard about, but I wasn't sure it would be that interesting. But it was intriguing enough just because I didn't know anything about it. A rich guy in the 1920's? Okay, sure. Why not? Yeah, it's a little bit bigger than a rich guy in the 1920's. The fact that no one knows who he is, and all the chaos that happens to them all once they do know. It was a really good book. I enjoyed it very much. But the whole thing is so screwed up, I don't think I'll read it again. Everyone and everything in that book is an insane amount of distorted. For my final exam I have to write an essay on that book. I'm talking about the color symbols (which are truly amazing) and how they represent the women that Nick and Gatsby admire and how they are viewed by each. Since I'm writing this post the day before I publish it, I have still yet to write the rough draft of that essay. Procrastination at its finest. However, I have a bomb thesis and some pretty good notes.
The plan really was to do a project on The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes this quarter, but again, who has time to read? So I did another book I had read, one that would just be easy to do a project on. So I chose I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter. This was a really good book, and the series as a whole is even better. Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I say this, and even I thought I was crazy when I thought it for the first time, but the Gallagher Girls series is the best-written series since J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter. The way everything fits together is so impressive. Well done, Carter. You can find the full review of that book here.
Yeah, it was a good year, it was good literature. But that class was so dang hard, I'm glad I have time to read and write for myself now. As difficult as it was though, I actually learned a lot from it about writing and literature. (Don't tell my friends, they will make fun of me forever.) And I can only figure that it's helping me with all of the English classes I'm going to be taking in college. (Because I'm probably going to be taking A LOT of English classes in college.)
See you later, guys. I love you!
--Lizzo
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