“Required readings” is a two word phrase that can make almost any student cringe, but in the case of My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok, a mere cringe would be a compliment. The sophomores taking Pre AP English 2 this year were forced to read this, the most depressing book ever written.

The novel tells the story of a Jewish artist, Asher Lev, and his life from childhood to adulthood. He struggles in choosing between his religion and his passion. He lives in the Ladover Hasidic Jewish community in New York where art is looked down upon, and religion is the most important thing. Yet, he starts to draw at a very young age and finds that art is something he loves really cannot contain.

The Rebbe of his community arranges for him to work with another artist, Jacob Khan, in hopes that he will teach Asher how to practice art without disrupting his school or religious life. However, things do not go as planned, and Asher constantly struggles with the true art he wants to create and the life that his parents and religious community want to create for him.

The whole book is full of struggles.That’s why students are required to read it: to learn about cultural conflicts and struggles and to analyze them in context. But, there are constant internal and external struggles in almost every character, making it more annoying than enjoyable to read. None of these struggles seem to resolve themselves either, and the ending is just a huge disappointment that, in hindsight, seemed inevitable from the beginning.

It was a depressing and boring read. If students are going to be forced to read novels, they should at least be entertaining ones.