The Weekly Report

Jeez it's been really taking me forever to finish this book... This is literally the longest it's ever taken me to finish a book. What's wrong with meeee???? It's only 464 pages, and I've finished 500 page books in a day. Oh well, I'll get there eventually.

On to the interesting stuff though! I lied, it's honestly not too interesting. Nothing much has been happening. Graham and Polly have writing to each other, ooh scandalous I know. Next thing you know they'll be walking arm in arm in public on the way to church. These kids need to take a chill pill and slow way down before they rush into things too fast! While that's going on, dear Lucy Snowe has been hanging around Villette doing whatever. And that's basically it.

Alright, I'm going to be honest here. I thought Villette would be as awesome as Jane Eyre, but so far it really isn't. All the reviews for it said "Bronte's finest novel" or "A still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre". Yeah, no. Jane Eyre is still way better. However I'll still finish it because I'd feel bad if I didn't. I also really wanted to read Jane Eyre again before the semester ended, but I guess that won't happen considering it's taken me forever just to finish one book. I really hope we get to do 20% Time again next semester because I already know what I want to do. Til then, happy reading!

Welcome Back! :)

First off, I want to say Happy Belated Thanksgiving to everyone and I hope everyone had a relaxing week off!

So let's catch up with Villette! Dr. John, aka John Graham Bretton the 16 year old boy from the beginning, has gotten over the vain and shallow Ginevra Fanshawe! He also finally recognizes Lucy Snowe from their past and two reconnect. Personally, I believe this re-connection and new friendship has had bigger impact on Lucy than Graham. She seems a little two overly fond of the letters he writes to her and cries a lot more. But that's just silly old me, what do I know? Also, as I predicted earlier, dear little Polly (Paulina Mary) has returned! She is now a stunning young lady of seventeen years of age. Dear Graham (aka Dr. John) has indeed noticed this transformation from a little, undeveloped girl to a graceful, high-class lady. Methinks me smells some possible romance in the air, but again, that's just silly old me throwing suggestions into the wind. I feel bad for Lucy though because it seemed as though she really liked him... oh well I'm sure she'll get over it! Oh and Miss Fanshawe and Polly are cousins! Awkward, right?

Okay so that was my brief summary of what's been going on in Villette, but I have a special treat for you guys! The amazing Mrs. Finco took her AP Lit class to a magical place called the "library" where you can actually borrow books without any collateral or down payment for a finite amount of time. And it's free! What a crazy place right? Who would have thunk it actually existed? Alright. alright I'll get to the point and quit my sarcastic shenanigans (for now). I checked out possibly one of the most amusing books I have ever read. Ready for this? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. "What? That actually exists?", you ask? Why yes, yes it does. And it was absolutely fantastic! I'm already a sappy, romantic Jane Austen fan to begin with, but Pride and Prejudice with the addition of zombies? That's just a super yes right there. It basically follows the story line of Pride and Prejudice, but with zombies! The Bennett sisters are super awesome warriors who fight with katanas (samurai swords) and they absolutely kick butt! Especially Elizabeth, of course. If Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen (Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy of the the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice) did this version, my life would be made!

So my break was awesome, I literally slept 12 hours everyday, and then ate turkey. Yep, that's called living the life. However we sadly have to jump right back into the saddle and carry on what we left undone. Bring it on school! Til then, happy reading!

I'm Sorry

First of all, I'd like to apologize for that last blog post. It was really pessimistic and it didn't seem like me at all. I also kind of lied about not getting anything done. Although I didn't read Villette, I did read another book called Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen. It's a memoir about this 18-year-old's experience in a mental hospitable. She was institutionalized for being severely depressed, attempting suicide, and having borderline personality. What's surprising the most interesting is her diagnostic appointment with the psychologist. In the records, it shows he examined her for three hours, yet Kaysen claims to have only been examined for 15 minutes. What, what? Crazy, I know right (haha no pun intended)? Anyway, Kaysen spent almost two years in this mental hospital (sorry I'm not more detailed, I returned the book back to Mrs. Finco already) and feels as though her time was stolen from her, hence the title. She views herself as the girl whose life was interrupted, and she'll never get that time back.

So I was a little productive, whoo hoo! I'll do my best to read more this week. Til then, happy reading! :)

Lyfe

This past week was rough. It's amazing how the human body can do so many things, but only take so much. Why aren't we built to last longer? Why do we need to recuperate our energy every night? Why can't the day have more hours in it? Why Why Why???? It's just so frustrating...

Going to bed from 3-4 in the morning this past month or so finally got to me. Remember how I said last week I may be losing my mind? Well yesterday I did. Completely lost it, unattractive sobbing, curled up on a little bed in the clinic, the whole shabang. So yeah, not good.

Because of this, I literally read nothing this week. I'm just too tired and all I want to do is go home and sleep until it's Thanksgiving. Why can't humans hibernate? It always astonishes me how teachers complain that students don't do an assignment or fall asleep in class. Well excuse me for wanting just a little more than two hours sleep.

Ugh, enough of this frustrating emotional crap. I'll try my best to do some reading next week. Til then... um... happy lyfe?

Vanity in Villette

To be honest, I don't remember must of what happened this past week... It kind of went by like a blur. I remember taking a calculus test and that's about it. Who knows, maybe I'm losing my mind. But that's besides the point! Who wants to read about my possibly deteriorating mental state when you can read about Villette! (No, that was not sarcasm, smarty pants)

Ah Villette (the city I mean), what a beautiful place. So I last left off with how creepy Madame Beck is. Good news guys, she's still super creepy! Yay! She's actually really awesome though. She thinks rationally and is only trying to run a tight ship. speaking of the metaphorical ship, remember the girl Lucy met on the literal ship? She's baaaack! Ginevra Fanshawe is the most annoying, vain character in the book so far. She's one of those girls who believes she's all that and a box of chocolates and literally tells you: "Don't you wish you amazingly perfect like me? *annoying cute giggle*" And guess who's stupid enough to fall in love with her? The handsome gentleman who assisted Lucy, Dr. John. He's so infatuated with her that he doesn't even realize that she's just using him. At Madame Beck's birthday ball, Fanshawe was flirting between both him and some military officer whose name isn't that important. Lucy tells Dr. John that Fanshawe is just playing him, but he simply will not listen to her. My hope is that Fanshawe dumps him so he can move on to a worthier interest.

I know it's kind of lame to end my summary like this, but that's all I read! Now let's move on to some complaints. Yes, I surprisingly have complaints about a Romantic novel (not to be confused with romance novel people. There's a difference, look it up). The French dialogues annoy the living poop out of me. I CAN'T READ FRENCH. Therefore, I have no idea what they're saying. If it was just one word or two I'd go look it up, but it's not. It's literally full blown multiple sentences. So what I do is that I just skip over it until they're speaking English again. I figure that if it's in French it's probably not important.I guess Bronte wanted show off that she knew French or something. Oh well, I still like the book.

Okey dokey, so this week I'll try to remember what I did and read more. Maybe all I need is Thanksgiving break. Mm I can't wait to stuff my face with food... but I digress! Til then, happy reading kiddiewinkles!

A Foreigner in France

Soooooo last week basically was the worst week EVER. I'm pretty sure I had a mini-mental breakdown at one point, but it's kind of hard to tell... Yeah between writing the government research paper of Hell and calculus, I just about died. It also means I didn't get that far in Villette. But the good news is that I've gotten more sleep this weekend than I've had last week combined! Whoo hoo laziness! Enough about me though, let us begin to peruse the life of Lucy Snowe...

Okay, first of all, I love the name Lucy Snowe. It just sounds really cool. It's unclear as to whether she is an orphan or not because she never mentions her parents and is currently living with her godmother, Mrs. Bretton. Another visitor comes to stay at Mrs. Bretton's as well. Her name is Polly Home and the reason of her coming is because her mother has recently died and her father travels too much, he can't take care of her. Polly seems quite mature for her age (6) and misses her father greatly. So much so, that she won't form any sort of relationship with Mrs. Bretton's 16 year old son Graham, no matter how hard he tries to win her favor. Polly's father comes to see her, but then leaves again in a few days. Polly, distraught, turns to Graham for comfort and the two become almost inseparable. Now that Polly has finally formed a strong relationship with Graham, her father takes her away, leaving her, yet again, distraught. All this is told through Lucy's eyes.

Soon after Polly leaves, Lucy leaves as well. She assumes work under Miss Marchmont, a rheumatic cripple. Lucy served as her caretaker until she eventually died (she was old). Lucy is left with no where to go, so she visits her old nurse, who is now a housekeeper. Here, she gets the idea to go to London to explore and seek her future. Poor Lucy realizes how big of an undertaking this journey is and cries out her feelings. She travels around some more and eventually finds herself on a boat. She meets a young girl who gives her the idea to find work in Villette as Madame Beck's English governess. Too bad nobody in Villette speaks ENGLISH. Lucy arrives in Villette lost and without her trunk because the baggage handlers lost it (yes, that happened even back then). She's trying to ask a non-English speaking attendant where her trunk is, but he of course cannot understand her. So she asks an English gentlemen who just happens to be in the vicinity and speaks French. Let me interject for a second here, when does that ever happen???? I know for sure that whenever I travel there is no nice, good-looking gentleman who helps me with my bag or anything like that. Jeez only in novels... Anywhoozles, so he helps her out, yadayadayada, he escorts her through the dark parts of town, yadayadayada whatever. So she ends up getting lost and miraculously ends up and Madame Beck's. Madame Beck is really weird. So she hires Lucy and then proceeds to look through her things when she's "asleep". Yes, sneaky Lucy, and Madame Beck's a creeper!

Soooooooo yeah that's where I left off because I fell asleep reading in class... yeah sorry Mrs. Finco, the floor was a little too comfy apparently... But Villette is definitely super interesting and I really want to know if Polly is coming back! I'll do my best this week though! Til then, happy reading!

Bringin' it Back to Bronte

I've decided my my next book is Villette by the fantastic Charlotte Bronte. Charlotte Bronte is known for writing Jane Eyre, which I believe to be her most famous novel. I've read Jane Eyre and it was a marvelous novel, so I have high hopes for Villette. According to famous author Virginia Woolf, this is her "finest novel". So yeah, I'm super excited.

Weeelllll this week I didn't get much done. I didn't get another book after I finished Rebecca so I was basically doing nothing. It took a while to get Villette because it wasn't at the Parkview library and I had to request it at the public library (thank you my dear mommy for taking care of that for me). But for 20% Time this week I did do something somewhat productive. I read the amazingly, fantastic Harry Potter series, the first book anyway. Harry Potter is a classic on its own, so it counts!

Okey dokey, this week I'll most definitely start Villette and fill you guys on it later. Till then, stay classy people.

OMG WHAT IS GOING ON????

Alright, I'm going to just jump right into this...

INCOMING, SPOILER ALERT INCOMING, SPOILER ALERT INCOMING.

So who exactly is Rebecca? Maxim de Winter's beautiful and outgoing first wife, who died tragically in a sailing accident? The story goes that her drowned body was found miles up the shore, horribly mauled by the sea. Well that is how the story went until Rebecca's sunken boat was accidentally discovered a little offshore by a diver who was helping another boat. However that's not even the crazy part. Rebecca's body was found in the cabin. Whaaaaaaaaaaaattttt?????? I know right, it got me too. So now poor New Wife has to deal with this haphazard resurrection of Rebecca, continuing to fight for Maxim's love. Only the thing is, she never really needed to win his love. Maxim never loved Rebecca and was deeply in love with New Wife. The reason? She was a harlot, to put it non-colloquial terms. She had that cottage to bring her many lovers to spend the night there. Maxim new about this the whole time, though. He agreed to marry her because she promised to make Manderley great, and she did. In turn, Maxim allowed her to go up to London to see her various "friends", especially her first cousin Jack Favell. Incest much? Yep, Favell was one of her cottage-mates. Maxim resented her for this, so much so that he killed her. Yes, you read right, Maxim de Winter killed Rebecca. He shot her in her cottage, hid her body in the cabin of her boat, locked the door, and sunk her boat. He admitted all of this to New Wife, who in turn, out of all of this the only thing she got was that Maxim loved her. It was the only thing she wanted to here since they got married about four months ago. However, they still need to deal with the fact that Rebecca has returned to threaten their happiness. After a grueling and stressful meeting with the coroner, Rebecca's death was ruled as a suicide. So yay, the de Winters are officially out of the woods now! Yeah, no. Rebecca's incestuous lover Jack Favell is still around and has made a claim that Maxim killed Rebecca because he hated Rebecca's consorting with him. This new investigation led to the discovery that Rebecca had cancer. So now it seems as though Rebecca had a motive for suicide. Whoo hoo, New Wife and Maxim can live happily ever after! Not so fast, said the notorious Mrs. Danvers. On the way home home, Maxim sensed something wrong...

"The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind from the sea."

I'm pretty sure you can guess what happened...

OKEY DOKEY KEEP ON READING PEOPLES.

I have no idea how I'm going to follow up Rebecca, but I'll choose my next book from the list Mrs. Finco gave me. I super recommend this book though! Happy reading till next week then.

Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca!!!

I'm going to just going to come out and say it, Rebecca is outstanding!!! Yes, three exclamation points were necessary.
SUPER EXTREME SPOILER ALERT. IF CAN'T HANDLE THE AWESOMENESS, TOO BAD.

I left off giving you guys a gist of what Rebecca was about. Read it if you don't know. Okey dokey now, so New Wife (still don't know her name) has married Maxim and is living at Manderley. She met the staff and one particular employee stands out as a major obstacle. The creepy Mrs. Danvers acts like she welcomes and likes New Wife, but in reality she still is hanging to Rebecca as mistress of the house. New Wife feels uncomfortable being the new mistress of the house, but she has made a friend! Maxim's agent, Frank Crawley, fully supports New Wife and believes she can help Maxim get over Rebecca's death. However!!! I've noticed there has been some suspicion surrounding Rebecca's death. New Wife met a mentally impaired man named Ben on the beach and also discovered a cottage Rebecca used when she was out sailing late. Ben reveals that Rebecca once threatened to put him in a mental institution for seeing her in the cottage. What is sweet Rebecca doing threatening people, I have no idea. So poor New Wife is stuck trying to figure all this out while trying to shrug off the burden of succeeding Rebecca.

SAFE TO CONTINUE. I REPEAT, SAFE TO CONTINUE.

I have to give props to Mrs. Finco and my friend Emily for recommending this book. And in turn, I recommend it to anyone else reading this! So this week I'll continue to read hopefully unravel the mysterious shroud that surrounds Rebecca.

So Long, Medieval Poetry...

Since I've had enough of Middle English poetry and feeling a little Jane Eyre-ish, Mrs. Finco gave me list of awesome books to choose from. And my next book is....wait for it........ Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. I just started yesterday and only on page nine, so I don't really have much to say about it yet. But here's a brief summary on what it's generally about:

The widower Maxim de Winter has been remarried to a younger woman. But he just can't seem to get over the death of his first wife, Rebecca. Rebecca was apparently a super awesome person/wife, so New Wife (I don't know her name yet), doesn't know if she can live up to standard set by her precedent. What's happens next? I'll let you know when I get there.

Something I found interesting was that the widower's name is Maxim de Winter. Think about it, MAXIM de WINTER. Maximum Winter? As in, will he stay forever living in a cold world without love or move on to love his second wife? I just love wordplay. Anywhoozles, I can tell this book is going to be awesome and fill you guys in as I read on, as usual. Go literature!

The End of a Journey

Tis the end of my journey with The Canterbury Tales. This week was actually not too bad work-load wise. Too bad it's probably never going happen again, but I enjoyed it while it lasted. All I did was basically super-read to finish The Canterbury Tales so here are my thoughts on them.

Not all the stories are worth mentioning in my opinion so I'll just share my favorite ones with you guys.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER ALERT ALERT ALERT

To finish the Knight's tale, what happened is that Arcite won the mini-war! But he fell off his horse and landed on his head and died. So now Emily goes to Palamon. That's just the lamest way to win. Arcite technically won, but then lost by dying. A happy ending to Palamon though.

The Prioress's tale was spiritual, miracle story. What happens is that this little boy who enjoys going to school to learn about God wants to learn this song that he heard on the way to school. He learns it and sings it on the way to school, but some Jewish guy doesn't like hearing Christian music so he does the logical thing: slit the boy's throat and throw him in a ditch. The boy' mother is distraught because he didn't come home from school so she sets off to find him. She finds him by hearing his voice singing from the ditch he was thrown in. He's alive, yay! Basically mother and son reunite and they live happily ever after.

The Monk's tale is compilation of the stories of the downfalls of various prominent figures in history or myth. this one was a depressing, boring one so I'll just tell you some of the people mentioned. Lucifer, Hercules, Samson, and Julius Caesar. Yeah, you get the gist of tragedy here.

The Clerk's tale was absolutely ridiculous. The marquis of some place is pressured into marrying. So he marries this super poor peasant girl he thought was really beautiful and had a kind heart. He gives her one condition: she must abide by his every word. After they have their first child he decides he wants to test her faithfulness. He demands that she gives up their child to be killed. The child isn't really killed, but sent to live with his sister in Bologna. She willingly does it and still has a cheerful heart. The marquis does the same with their second child. To test her even further he divorces her to marry another woman worthy of his status and makes her leave the palace naked to live in the village as a peasant again. After all this she's still has a kind, innocent heart. The marquis eventually feels as though she's faithful enough and takes her back. What a swell guy. This story really irks me because no woman, or man for that matter, should be tested in their faithfulness. The fact that one would even feel the need to is red flag in that relationship. Also, neither man nor woman should be above or below in a relationship. No one gives orders and no one takes them. It's a compromise from both sides.

IT'S ALL GOOD IN THE HOOD. READING MAY ASSUME NOW.

In other blog posts I discussed the Wife of Bath's tale, the Miller's tale, and the Reeve's tale so I won't here. Out of all the stories, I like the Wife of Bath's tale the most. It may be because I'm a girl, but I agree that women should have their own say in things and have the right to make their own decisions.

Okey dokey, so now that I've finished one book I need to move on to the next one. I'm not sure what it's going to be yet, but I plan on asking Mrs. Finco. Happy reading then!

More of Le Canterbury Tales

This week I've succeeded in reading the story of the Knight in the Canterbury Tales. I couldn't finish it sadly because this week was absolutely hideous. But another productive thing I did was do my presentation for my project Friday! whoo hoo!

So this week wasn't packed with awesome Chaucer stuff, but I plan to finish the Knight's tale next week and probably another story. Jeez senior year was supposed to be easy... Anywhoozles, let me tell a little about our dear Sir Knight.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

Two very close friends named Palamon and Arcite are captured as prisoners of war and imprisoned in a tower in Athens for life. At least they have each other right? Not so fast reader, for here comes the beautiful Emily flouncing around in a meadow that just happens to be overlooked by Palamon's and Arcite's tower. Both claim to have seen her first and fall madly in love with her.Neither yields to the other's passion and they ultimately decide to not be friends anymore. They threw away a lifetime of friendship for girl. Whatever happened to "brethren before wenches" guys, seriously? Arcite gets out of prison by being pardoned by the noble Theseus but poor Palamon is still stuck in that darn tower. Arcite is prohibited from ever entering Athens again and now he can't creepily stare at Emily anymore, poor guy. So he goes home to Thebes and spends some time there pining away for Emily when one day comes up with this super awesome plan. He returns to Athens under another identity and ends up in Theseus' employment. Score on for Arcite. Palamon, on the other hand, somehow escapes from prison and wanders the outskirts of Athens as a loner. But one day, as chance would have it, Arcite just happens to stumble upon Palamon! They start arguing and decide to fight honorably as a knight should for the hand of the lovely Emily (and Emily has no idea any of this is going on). Theseus happens to stumble upon their fight and decides they should be reasonable and have an all out war for Emily. What a wise guy. I ended at the point where the battle is just about to commence.

READ ON, FRIENDS.

So next week I'll get a couple more stories in if time allows. Happy reading kiddiewinkles and stay classy!

The Padawan Has Found Her Jedi Master

So after weeks and weeks of tedious soul-searching and contemplation, I, a Padawan 20% of the time, have finally found my Jedi Master (woot woot!). Who could this insanely lucky, eager to teach Jedi be you ask? Why none other than the amazingly, wonderfully, talented Mrs. Finco that's who! Basically she's going to advise me on what to read. Saying that I'm going to read a bunch of classic novels is actually a little harder than it sounds, mainly due to the fact that their are A LOT of classics. Being the super-cool, well-read Jedi she is, Mrs. Finco is going to the use the Force to interpret which books I should definitely read. Just kidding, she's might not use the Force, might. So now that I have found my Jedi Master, choosing which books to read next will be a lot easier.

But now on to the juicy stuff! This is the moment you've all been waiting for: What happened at the end of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?????? Well I finished it so I guess I'll tell you guys and not leave you hanging. CAUTION: SPOILER ALERT APPROACHING. I REPEAT, SPOILER. ALERT. APPROACHING.

Last week, I left off with why in the name of Merlin's pants was Mr. Hyde lying dead in Dr. Jekyll's laboratory? Joke's on you, Mr. Hyde IS Dr. Jekyll! What what, mind is completely blown! Our dear Dr. Jekyll decided to mess with Nature and the balance of Good and Evil. Now that is a ginormous red flag. Mess with the balance of Nature, and Nature bites back with a vengeance. Dr. Jekyll attempted to create a potion that will eliminate the evil in the human soul. However the potion did the opposite, it instead completely brought the wickedness of the soul. Good Dr. Henry Jekyll was therefore transformed into the notorious Mr. Edward Hyde. For a while Dr. Jekyll enjoyed being Mr. Hyde because of the freedom he felt. By assuming an evil identity and completely disregarding everything good, Jekyll had no conscience warning him of the consequences of his actions. For a while he looked forward to drinking the potion and freeing himself from guilty constraints, yet soon Mr. Hyde began to take over Dr. Jekyll's mind and body. This scared Dr. Jekyll because he didn't want to give up his soul to the the evil beast in him. the war between the two spirits in one body escalated up to the point where Dr. Jekyll had to resort to extreme measures in order to end the battle once and for all. While he still had some consciousness left as Mr. Hyde, Jekyll committed suicide in order to "kill" Hyde. But being one and the same, Jekyll was killed as well.

DANGER HAS PASSED. YOU CAN CONTINUE READING NOW.
So kiddies what have we learned from this experience? Don't mess with the balance of Good and Evil, you're in waaaaaay over your head. Let the beast inside remain caged inside.

So I may lied to you guys last week by saying Lady Susan would be my next book. Due to convenience, I've decided to read The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is about thirty pilgrims undertaking the journey to the Canterbury Cathedral. The pilgrims take turns telling stories in a competition for a free dinner from their host. The pilgrims introduced thus far are really interesting. The Wife of Bath has been married five times and is on this pilgrimage to find lucky number six. A sterling knight fresh from fighting in the Crusades is there too. There's also a drunk Miller and a raunchy Reeve. I've read the raunchy Reeve's tale (sorry Mrs. Finco, I couldn't help it you made me too curious) and although it was interesting, by no means do I recommend it to anyone under the age seventeen. And even then it's a little iffy. I've also read Chaucer the pilgrim's tale. Save yourselves, its a complete waste of time. It's so bad he doesn't even get to finish it. The Wife of Bath's prologue is very interesting. She discusses her previous husbands and what she herself is looking for in a marriage.

I can't make any promises on how far I get reading this week because teachers are deciding to assign SO MUCH POOP. But I'll do my best!

The First Novel

I'm going to be honest, this week I didn't get as much reading done as I thought I would. However this was not by choice. I blame the teachers who chose to assign a lot of homework this whole week as well as other graded assignments that required studying until like one in the morning every night. So all I could do was read during guided study Monday and also during 20% Time Friday.

I'm a little over halfway through now in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and things have picked up quite a bit. SPOILER ALERT. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS DO NOT READ ON UNTIL I SAY SO.
The notorious Mr. Hyde is now wanted for the murder of a representative of Parliament. Being a wanted man, he can't exactly take a stroll out on the street to buy fresh bread. Meanwhile, the good Dr. Jekyll seems to be in a depreciated state, seeing as how his heir is wanted for murder. His dear friend Mr. Utterson is quite concerned and does what any other good friend would do: follow the butler to Jekyll's house and break down the door to his private laboratory and demand answers. Now that's a true friend. Unfortunately, Mr. Hyde seems to be up to his usual shenanigans, this time resulting in his own death. Now what is Mr. Hyde doing lying dead in Dr. Jekyll's private lab? Excellent question, I'll let you guys know when I find out.

YOU CAN CONTINUE READING NOW.
So this week I'll most likely finish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and start my next book, Lady Susan by Jane Austen. Next week I'll let you know what it's about and being a Jane Austen novel, there's bound to be some momma drama (which I'm actually excited about). And hopefully I'll get a little more reading time if my teachers feel like being nice.

How to Begin?

So I started out my journey through the classics with the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster. Mrs. Finco recommended I read this so I gain a better understanding of the novels I read, and so far, it has indeed been useful.

But enough about How to Read Literature Like a Professor, this blog is to keep you updated on what classics I'm reading. I've started off with the chilling tale of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Most of you probably know the story, kind Dr. Jekyll creates a chemical mixture that brings out the evil side of him-the  notorious Mr. Hyde. However, there's a lot more to the story than that. Thirty-two pages in out of eighty-six, Stevenson has barely introduced Dr. Jekyll, surrounding him a shroud of mystery. And apparently the main ruckus around town isn't really caused by Mr. Hyde, but a will. A will that leaves all of Dr. Jekyll to the sketchy Mr. Hyde. I think Dr. Jekyll's friends are a little miffed that they got written out of his will while this evidently evil stranger reaps the rewards. So far the book has been interesting and I can't wait to finish it so I can start another one. Yeah that was kind of nerdy, I know...

Anyway, next week I'll probably finish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and start a new book. I haven't decided which one yet though.