LAST BLOG POST!!

Shoutout again to all my classmates, teachers, and TAs for the hard work this term!!

Heading into this course, I expected to challenge some of my thinking through the different books and perspectives that we read. I think I definitely achieved this because we read many narratives where views and outlooks were presented that I didn’t always agree with, or life experiences that I hadn’t experienced myself which that helped broaden my horizons. I didn’t really expect to connect with a lot of the narratives or to feel like the author had put into words exactly thoughts I had had or a perspective I understood, particularly with the books talking about gender and the experiences of women. I also expected myself to fulfill my contract which as far as I’m concerned I did unless I missed a book lol.

One of my goals was to “pay attention” to the details of the books and the world in which they were written. The lectures definitely helped me learn more about the time period that the books were written and what influenced their writing. As for paying attention to the themes or the things that the author wrote about underneath the surface, I felt like I paid more attention to the surface level and wasn’t really too in tune with what was happening underneath, but the lectures helped me understand certain themes and topics I hadn’t seen before by pulling out quotes and thoughts on the novels.

One thing that I liked about the course, like someone else also said, was the ability to hear what other people thought of the books – especially when people ranted about what they didn’t like because that was highly entertaining. Another thing I liked was being able to place the book’s narratives within their historical context because that helped me visualize what the politics were like at the time that the author was writing or in the time of the characters. It was helpful to have some of the course content be online and only attend class for the books you read because it allowed me time to both read the books and write the blog posts and watch the lectures. Also, like I said before, I liked that the lectures brought in themes I wouldn’t have thought of before or confirmed some of the thoughts I had going into them and introduced me to new thinking or ways of looking at the book.

Honestly, out of all the books, my favorite (and this may be recency bias) would probably be Money to Burn. I think because it was fairly different from a lot of the other books we’d read, it provided a nice contrast because of the adventure and the thrill aspect of it. Also, I was invested in the characters and their life stories even though it was quite gritty. Other contenders would probably be The Shrouded Woman and My Brilliant Friend because of the exploration of female friendships and inner lives.

That’s all for now.

Peace,

Maia