GE Thoughts on Reading

Let me start on saying this, I wouldn't pick Great Expectations as a choice for reading outside of class. I understand that in English this novel shows a unique writing style of Charles Dickens, and has important morals and literary devices/techniques. In the beginning of the book, it was overwhelming how there were so many literary things coming at you, sometimes it was hard to catch everything. For me, it was boring at the beginning but I understand it was building the structure of Pip's life before becoming a gentleman; and of course it was exciting right in the middle of stage 2 until the end. I liked the characters background stories, because they all connected together. It was also fun trying to figure out the rumors of relationships. There were many settings throughout the book. At first it was confusing and now that I finished reading, I thought it was very realistic how people call places by the street and not by name. For example, when we say we are going to school we do not keep repeating Olympia High School because that would be repetitive and sound odd. Sometimes I have to keep remembering that the narrative is from Pip, but him as an adult looking back and telling us. Dickens writing was fun to read from, and you can compare his style to other authors like Edgar Allen Poe. I liked Biddy as a character because nowadays, there are more teenage girls that are like her instead of Estella. Her character is easy to relate to, but the funniest character was the Aged Parent. He lived in the "castle/fort" and was fun. My absolute favorite parts about books are the mysteries that lie in them, they are fun to figure out. I was excited that I find out Estella's parentage, and the reason why Miss Havisham is dark and twisty.

The second week I got behind in my reading, by Friday I had to read around 100 pages. I always caught up in my reading before the week was over so i could do my annotations and weekly journal on Thursdays. Usually before I go to sleep I try to read the assignment, but then I get tired and stop then I only have a chapter or a few pages left to read before school. Sometimes I tried to read before even getting into bed but I got distracted with something else. My favorite spot reading is on my living room couch where I hear some noise from the kitchen where there are faded conversations. I think I like reading with some noise because it'll focus me to read instead of doing something else. In the middle of the book I didn't annotate much while reading, If I haven't done enough annotations I do it before school  Friday. however,  during the end of the book I annotated a lot. I always do my weekly journals around 8 pm, I always remember because I watch Grey's Anatomy at 9 pm, and always wanted to finish the journal before the show started. Having a routine of doing my weekly journals was easy, sometimes during that I put few more annotations in. Half-way through the book I got my routine down and it was easier to look back on what I read and not cram everything before school started on Friday.