Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Back in high school, all of my friends took AP English and I didn't. At the time it made sense. Mudd really didn't care about AP English, and since my high school capped us at 3 AP courses, I filled that space with physics and calculus. I don't regret that decision, but I did miss out on some interesting books. So I'm going back to fill in these gaps, and the latest "missed" book is Tess. I can't even really remember how my friends reacted to this book. I'm not entirely sure how I would have reacted to it. Or how it was taught. I doubt I'd have been ready for it when I was 17. But now I shuddered almost immediately when Alec was introduced - ignoring Tess' boundaries from the start and then blaming her for his every transgression. Even Angel, presented as the perfect man, comes across as pretty awful. Really this is a book about how much it sucks to be a woman. Tess is raped. Her child dies before it can be baptized. She falls in love and l...