What's Elizabeth Reading? ... Michael Scott ...Also, computer problems

I'm taking a Young Adult Fiction class this semester, and the professor asked all of us to pick a book to read which wasn't already on our reading list.  I called up one of my younger brothers, who is 15, and asked him for a book recommendation (and a loan of said book).  Looks like I'm reading Michael Scott's The Alchemyst.  Yes, I'm still reading Huckleberry Finn.  I'm an English major.  I read three or more books at once.

I've started The Alchemyst and have three thoughts up front.  1) I like the cover.  Hope y'all don't think that's too shallow of me.  2) This story has potential, I hope Scott does a good job with it.  My brother absolutely loved the book.  3) The writing is deplorable.  It's made me realize why this brother of mine thought the book I wrote in high school was absolutely amazing, even though I look back and think, "Dang, I am sure glad I write better than that now."  At some point, I hope to go back to that story and rewrite it, because it was original and, well, good.  Scott keeps telling me things that are obvious and drawing out key points painfully.  For example, the protagonists are twins.  This is mentioned and pointed at, oh, I don't know, about five times in two pages.  That's what it feels like, anyway.  Everyone's all "they're twins?" "Oh, they're twins." "Think they're twins?"  Annoying.  You've told me once, don't tell me again.  Please have some confidence in your reader.

Then again, maybe I'm being too hard on Scott.  For all I know, most Young Adult Fiction is like this.  It makes me want to go back to my favorites from middle and high school to see how good my favorite authors' writing was.  My favorites included J.K. Rowling (of course), Tamora Pierce, and T.A. Barron.  Yeah, I was really into fantasy.  I don't when it was that I started branching out, but I know it was largely because of my desire to become well-read.

We'll see how this pans out.  For now, I'm reading Huck Finn to keep myself sane and attempting to see past the writing (as result of the age group or is this really how Scott writes?) in The Alchemyst.

On another note, my laptop has decided to throw in the towel.  I have some connections in the university's tech department, so I have a couple people doing what they can to fix it.  I literally cannot get to my desktop.  The computer (named Austen, by the way) will let me log in, but it won't go further than "Welcome," except for once, when it got to "Preparing Desktop."

Saturday was the day that I wrote my short story, and it was on Monday morning that my computer gave out on me (today is Friday).  For now, I'm using a computer at the newspaper office (did I mention I work for the campus newspaper as the Opinion Editor?).  Luckily, I have a habit of saving my documents not only on my computer, but also in the cloud, so my story was not lost.  It just means that I was trying to edit my story while the person next to me was watching Arrested Development.  This also means I haven't watched the latest episode of Once Upon a Time, which saddens me.  I guess I could follow Development's example, but so far I haven't.  I'll catch up later.  Sometime.  In the meantime, I'm just happy most of my homework is reading, and I'm glad that I love reading as much as I do!