The key to a great thesis and to fulfilling the requirements of the essay is good question. Life is too short to waste time doing such things. Find your voice, your questions, and use your writing to learn more about what you what to know. As with the thesis, don't fool yourself into believing the very first question you ask is the best question. These too require thinking and rethinking, articulating and re-articulating, before they are strong and successful.
Good writers know that good writing requires re-writing, and always more than one rewrite.
Give yourself enough time to do the writing. Plus they have little value to you as learning tools, either about the books or about writing itself. Keep trying to go beyond the surface. This is much more than merely restating what an author has said. The task is much more involved than citing a passage.