My favorite book would be 1984 by George Orwell. We read this novel when I was in High School. I started reading it begrudgingly. Another pre-selected novel that I could love, or very much dislike. However, I swiftly found that I was completely enthralled. I found intrigue, discomfort, and lessons throughout the entirety of the novel. The concept of a dystopian society like the one in the novel is what most captivated me. Our government could one day fall into a totalitarian regime and that thought, that fear, pulled my interest further and further. We see moments in our own government and surrounding governments, even in more recent years, that I can relate back to what I learned about totalitarianism. We see it with the governance of what can and cannot be read in schools. Books that have been banned. We experience our own versions of "Big Brother" when we tap into certain websites and they track our data to feedback to us as ads. We experience it when we allow apps on our phones to track our locations. These examples are not nearly as extreme as in the novel, nor as true totalitarianism, but my point still stands. Fear can change the world. For example, fear of COVID has changed the way so many things in our world are operating now. The idea that something so extreme could happen to us makes this piece stick so heavily in my mind. It was beautifully written. It opened my mind to so much. I could read it again and again and still take away so much from the lessons within.