I can’t believe it’s already the last week. Wow, this semester went by quickly and I will miss this class. I initially took this class to fulfill my literature credits but I did enjoy it, along with the novels! There are very few university classes that I would consider “fun”, but this class would definitely be considered one. If I’m able to, I would definitely take more literature classes in the future. 

When I chose to take this course, the course name is “Romance Studies” I expected our readings to have romance as a major theme, however, this class turned out to be totally different than my initial expectation but in a good way! In fact, only a few of the novels we have read actually had romance in them, but even then it wasn’t a big theme. I think this could be a rare situation where I am glad that this class didn’t live up to my initial expectation, since I’m not a big fan of romance novels. 

I was surprised that this course had a contract where we could essentially choose the grade we wanted, as long as we didn’t break our contract. This also gave us lots of freedom to fill out the contract that would work best with our schedule. I really liked the contracts because of this, since for many of our other classes, we don’t have much of a choice where our grades will fall, and the uncertainty of what our grades may be can be nerve-wracking. But the contract eliminated a lot of the anxious feelings which definitely help make this course more enjoyable!

Nada was definitely my favorite novel I have read in this class, followed by The Society of Reluctant Dreamers, Bonjour Tristesse, and The Shrouded Woman. The complex relationships Andrea have witnessed in her relative’s house, along with some situations I didn’t expect, such as Ena breaking up with her boyfriend to get revenge for her mom on Roman, Roman’s death, how Juan and Roman seemed to hate each other but also can’t live with each other (implied by Juan’s grief that Andrea believed was the worst thing she witnessed). 

Also, thank you so much to Professor Beasley-Murrary, Jennifer, and Patricio for making this class so enjoyable! 

My very last question I have for this class is: do you have any favorite quotes from the novels we have read? If so, which ones are they and why are they your favorite?