RMST really was a nice change of scenery in place of the usual academic course. I was able to learn while not feel immense pressure from the course matter. I really was surprised by a lot of the books in the course, they covered themes I was not at all expecting. I thought of a romance studies course would carry more traditional themes of love, but instead we saw mostly themes of growing older and the challenges that come with it. That being said we also saw a lot of books that were hard to decipher, so while there wasn’t the traditional academic pressure there was a lot of confusion that I had to work through. I was also really proud of myself once I worked through those initial tough chapters and got into the flow of the book. Outside of this course I may have set the book down facing those challenges but I now have an increased appreciation for different styles of writing that at face value are not as straight forward. That being said my favourite book was still one of the more straight forward ones. I liked Augostino the best. I’m not sure exactly why but I think one of the biggest reasons was I had more time that week to slow down while reading the passages. That was my goal (to slow down and take the time to read my books) for the starting of the course and to be honest I didn’t really follow it for all the books, academic stress got the best of me. For Augostino I also enjoyed that we as readers are challenged to read a different perspective, even as it is off putting that his train of thought leads this way, its still interesting to follow his journey of exploration. As well I thought the characters were very unique, from his mother to his friends, they all had details that kept me curious throughout the book and asking questions even as they may not have been answered. My least favourite book would have to be Nadja, I didn’t like how the author framed the narrative about the woman. I thought he was doing too much at times and found it frustrating to keep reading. Overall I enjoyed the lectures, without them I would be very lost and the fact that we had it there ready to describe the book was nice. The lectures either reaffrimed what I had thought or rather pieced together the pieces of the puzzles.