No Rest For The AP Student

All year, students at Furnaceville High School work very hard.  They take AP classes and do their homework and are nice to teachers because they want to go on to Greater Things someday.  Then, after nine (9) months of this torment, they get a vacation.  No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks.
Or so we thought.
Because for students taking AP English, the teachers have devised a horrendous method of torture wonderful, enlightening educational activity.  The Summer Reading Assignment.  Basically, read a book, pick a bunch of passages and comment on them.  I have no objection to that.  If you have an objection to that, take grade-level English.
However, I have an objection to doing it on my vacation time.
It's not so bad this year.  I mean, it's not like I'm reading Lord of the Flies.  I'm taking two English classes next year because I want to skip senior year, so I've got two books to read.  Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, and The Forever War, by Dexter Filkins.  Note: There is also a book called The Forever War by Joe Haldeman.  That is not the book I have to read.
Life of Pi is pretty good.  It's not the kind of book I can gobble up in one sitting.  I'm reading it slowly.  The Forever War is by a journalist about the war in the Middle East.  It's too much carnage for one sitting, so I'm going through it slowly too.  I'm about halfway through.
I wish I had some advice for students who have to do these assignments.  But really, I'm just figuring it out myself.