What reading have you enjoyed most in the past year and why?

essay for boarding school admission

PROMPT: What reading have you enjoyed most in the past year and why?
I wrote this essay for boarding school admission but i dont know if it is good or bad or if I need to improve it.

The book that I have enjoyed most is "Fever" by Mary Beth Keane. I was only familiar with the name Thyphoid Mary and this book answered all the questions I have ever had about her. Fever is a fascinating novel that mixes historical fact and a fictional narrative to tell the tale of 'Typhoid Mary', the woman held responsible for several deadly outbreaks of the disease in the US around the turn of the nineteenth century.

In 1907, Mary Mallon was arrested at the direction of the Department of Health. She was accused of spreading Typhoid, a disease transmitted by the ingestion of contaminated food and water. When doctors decided that Mary was a carrier they hospitalized her and locked her in North brother island. Despite all of this Mary refused to cooperate, she did not understand the science behind what they were saying. After nearly two years Mary was liberated and let free but was told to never work as a cook again, yet, she started working as a cook again and was put back in North brother island. Mary was the equivalent of a loaded weapon. She killed people, albeit indirectly through ignorance and negligence. So of course she couldn't be just let alone, to continue infecting people and taking lives. Mary ended up dying in 1938 in North brother island.

I love historical novels and this one of the best I have ever read. I enjoyed it tremendously. It's a ride through time, but goes deeper into the personal habits, daily routines more than most historic novels .

The middle part of the essay is simply a narration of the content of the book. It is not part of the reason why you enjoyed reading the novel. The enjoyment should come from something that you learned about from the story that either influenced your point of view as a person, inspired you to think about entering into a specific career, informed you about something you knew little about, or, just because it was light reading that entertained you as it appealed to a sense of relaxation for you. I do not get any of these reasons in your response. Aside from the historical and somewhat questionable authenticity of the book you read, there was nothing in your response that would explain where the enjoyment came from The last line of your essay would have been a good start towards that explanation but you did not pursue it. You just let it end there and thus, failed to truly give an informative response to the prompt. If I were you, I would take out the middle part and bring the last lines up as the second paragraph, developing it further as the focused response that the essay needs.

I will do that. Thank you so much!