2nd Semester Independent Reading Reflection

I realized that this blog would be incomplete without its very last independent reading reflection, from my second semester of my senior year of high school. I didn't want to write it because I was afraid it was too late, and that I hadn't exactly done enough reading to make this post valuable. But as I have started publishing more and more book reviews to this blog (some of which I hope you've checked out and enjoyed!), I started to reflect on why I was doing that in the first place. Then, I had cause to look at my old reading reflections, and rediscovered the purpose of those: as a way for me to reflect and write about my passion for the books I was reading. So, here I shall publish what should have been written and published long ago: the last 2nd semester independent reading reflection.

This semester, I only read six books, which is definitely the least amount of books I read during any documented point in high school. I read:

Lord of Shadows: Cassandra Clare
Queen of Air and Darkness: Cassandra Clare
Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte
Five Feet Apart: Rachael Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry, and Tobias Iaconis
The Sun Also Rises: Ernest Hemingway
The Importance of Being Earnest: Oscar Wilde

Wuthering Heights | Book by Emily Brontë | Official Publisher Page ...

Definitely, what I learned this semester is that the classic books are an acquired taste. In fact, I read The Sun Also Rises before, technically speaking, but didn't really enjoy or understand it until this semester, when I read and analyzed it for class. Same for Wuthering Heights. But when I read these classics again and tried to get at their deeper meanings, I found that I enjoyed them much more than when I read them for surface level pleasure. I can now say that perhaps Wuthering Heights is one of my favorite classic novels for this reason. I was further inspired by learning this that I went out and reread Pride and Prejudice and annotated it heavily other the summer.

I hope you, whoever you are, learn like I did through your own reading reflections. Whether that be the kinds of books you want to read or try, or the ways in which you consume art. That's all for now. Happy reading!

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