Sometimes, you read a book, and it’s so good and so surprising that it practically knocks you off your feet. Dune was that book for me. I started it having only heard that it was really long, and I was expecting it to be overly intellectual, hard to understand, and boring. For me, it was not any of those things. I thought it was really well written and suspenseful, and the world was amazingly detailed and didn’t get bogged down in info dumps and worldbuilding. I loved how developed the characters were, and I felt like I really understood their motivations. The book has powerful messages about government, religion, and superstition. But one of the main reasons I love this book so much lies in the character of Lady Jessica, a Bene Gesserit, concubine to the Duke Leto Atreides, and mother of Paul Atreides. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a central strong female character in a book that was published in 1965. She is very powerful, not just mentally and physically but also emotionally. She feels vulnerable emotions, such as grief and fear, but she always puts them aside when she needs to get work done. I thought her mother/son relationship with Paul was very sweet, and she was one of the most human characters I have ever read. Overall, I felt like I couldn’t turn those pages fast enough. If you like sci-fi, prescience, or deep lore, then this book is for you.