TTT : Books on my syllabus

Take your seats !

Hosted by : The Broke & The Bookish

After skipping last week’s topic because I wasn’t really inspired/motivated, I’m glad to be back on track this week with this amazing topic.

I would absolutely hate to be a teacher, I always knew that and made a point to really speak my mind on that subject very frequently and very stubbornly over the years, because my family sort of always pushed me to become one : “But it’s well-paid, and you have as much holidays as the kids, think about when you’ll have your own and be on holidays as the same time as them” (I also emphasized – still do – the fact that I’d rather have my nails slowly removed everyday with pincers than have kids, but that’s another story). Nevertheless, I think it’s fun to imagine what kind of classes could be interesting.

You’ll see that I took this very seriously.

AP world-building : FICTIONAL GENEALOGY and map-making

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I think we can all agree that George R.R. Martin and Tolkien are two great masters of world-building : they created entire cultures, languages, and maps to make their stories more real. You can trace a character’s origins all the way back to their forefathers, you can learn the History of these stories, the changes in rulership, as you learned in your own History classes. Well, I would want a class, both for writers and readers, to learn both the basics of world-building, and to test your knowledge on fictional History.

CONFERENCE : THE MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL AND HOW TO DECONSTRUCT THE MYTH

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I think it’s a subject worth bringing up because you see it a lot in literature and I guess it’s important to identify when the female love interest is reduced to this trope, whether or not the author did it on purpose, and if the author meant something by it. Any John Green works wonders for deconstructing this myth (probably because he admits that he thought girls as otherly when he was younger, something he knows now was wrong to do), especially these two, with their male protagonists who create this image of their crush that’s just very toxic in the end. I also chose Starter For Ten because Alice appears a bit like that through Brian’s POV, and he adolizes her quite a lot, thinking she’s better and “not at all like the other girls”. I think he’s be interesting to see how this view turns against him.

 

LESSON IN PLOT TWIST, HOW TO THROW EVERY EXPECTATION TO THE BIN

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Not the entire series, but these in particular. I think it’s safe to say that none of us expected the end of the ASOIAF book (or the first season of the show, and for those who haven’t seen/read it yet, just know that this part is completely spoiler-free), and I think it really sets the tone for the rest of the series. The plot-twist in City Of Bones leaves less suprised and more like, disgusted. I already hated the characters so it just made me relieved for a moment, before the next books completely ruined that too. And, of course, Allegiant’s ending. It didn’t come as quite a surprise for me, but I think this kind of ending is rare enough in YA (especially dystopia YA) to be interesting.

HOMOROMANTIC/HOMOEROTIC SUBTEXT, WHEN AUTHORS ARE AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD GAY

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Nothing annoys me more than that. For The Secret History, the main character is definitely a bisexual in denial, considering the time-frame this book is set in, it’s not really surprising, but it’s still annoying when he’s all like “you kissed me, I liked it, but no homo, right ?”. For Vicious, I thought the relationship between Eli and Victor was so charged, I wondered how the author could just ignore it. Yes, of course, you like your best friend’s girlfriend, but when you’re pissed off because she takes your best friend’s attention away from you, then I think there’s been a misunderstanding somewhere.