Waking the Moon is fabulous - I reread it recently and was shocked at how well it was researched. (When I read it in my teens, I didn't know very much.) If you have any familiarity with research institutions in Washington, DC, you will recognize them in the novel. I was thinking that with some tweaking, it could actually be a successful screenplay; you might be able to guess which parts I'd like to minimize or hmm... well idkI have never seen someone mention Waking the Moon and am so excited now!!
Books can inspire you- The Secret History and Waking the Moon definitely inspired my love of ancient history and helped me when I was looking for degrees, but would find that so much more interesting than useless “back to school” tips and a thousand morning routines that mean nothing.
I'm not ashamed to say that Waking the Moon gave me an idea for a seminar project (years after I read it)! You never know where inspiration will lead you - so I completely agree with what you've written in your second paragraph. I did write about TSH when I was working on university applications, which in retrospect is cringe, but it was in the context of an essay: I wrote about how the novel functions as a kind of reception of classical narrative patterns. The book was not popular when I was applying to uni, but it must have been obvious that I liked it a little too much. (I feel like TSH only recently became popular - is that right? I think it won some award when it first appeared, but I was barely alive then.)
