Let’s be honest, professors are full of shit and your assigned reading is barely even necessary for getting a C in the class. Here are some damning reasons you don’t need to do it.

You didn’t go to lecture.

I mean, how are you supposed to understand what you are reading if you didn’t have a professor to explain the concepts in detail to you? You’ll just be wasting your time with only a moderate understanding of the subject, and like, what’s the point — you’ll just see the important stuff in review, which leads to our next point.

You’ll see the important stuff in review.

Last time I read my required class book, I had to slog through a full page about the mating habits of flatworms, which was really only tangentially related to the life and times of George S. Patton.

I shouldn’t have to read about how flatworms stab each other with their razor sharp penises until one gets pregnant and becomes female, just because it is used as an absurd and weirdly arousing metaphor for George’s relationship with his lieutenants. Christ on a bike, if I wanted to learn about flatworm sex, I presume there is some weird section of the internet where I can not only read about flatworm sex, but watch clips of it set to “Careless Whisper” by George Michael. If something is going to be on the test, the teacher would be a sadist to not put it in review.

You went to lecture

You are going to be seeing all the important stuff in lecture. The golden rule states “Do unto others as you would unto yourself,” but the golden rule also states “If it’s not in lecture, fuck it.” A major upside of this is you get to shift the blame of your failure onto your professors, which means you don’t have to confront your poor decision making and grow as a person.

Sparknotes exists

Why would anybody read anything except Sparknotes? Inferring the complex themes of a novel is an exercise in futility.

For example, the color green can mean up to five distinct things, depending on the culture of the author. What the fuck am I supposed to think when the blood of a main character “was green under the lights of the bar.” Did he have lucky blood? Is it a symbol of the rot alcoholism brings upon a family? Is the author reminding us that we should clean our wounds lest they become gangrenous? It would be the sign of a flawed method of teaching if the professor posted questions about the mundane aspects of the novel as a “gotcha” to students that don’t pay attention, forcing actually productive students to note unnecessary details and learn less from the book.