I had to read Wuthering Heights for English sophomore year. I fully expected to hate it, as some of my favorite writers did and my friends thought it was ridiculous. I ended up loving it though. The characters were so messed up that I could easily place myself in the narrator's place: utterly horrified, but still wanting to know more. It's a great book, but so many people go into it with the expectation that it's a romance novel. It's not, and was considered a tale of morality until people figured out Emily Bronte was *gasp* female. As long as that's kept in mind, then it's rather excellent. And I hated Stargirl. So much. There's a difference between being yourself and being yourself in a thoroughly obnoxious fashion, and she was the latter. Everyone else disagreed with me though.
We had to read Great Expectations in junior high, but only a sample of it. I liked it so much I had to get the book and read the rest. In high school my english teacher had a list of books you could use for book reports and I picked Planet of the Apes. Not sure what she was thinking when she put that next to other classic novels, but I loved it. Beowulf was pretty good, too, but I wasn't a big fan of Macbeth.
I Am David. I actually thoroughly enjoyed it, read it many years ago though, so can't say if it's good or not.
Most of my favourite works are those I've read over the course of my studies- amongst them: The Divine Comedy, La Vida Es Sueno, the Medea, the Aeneid, the works of Shakespeare, Dr. Faustus, Faust, The Birth of Tragedy, the Republic, Frankenstein, The Monk and a great many more.
Lord of the Flies. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and MacBeth. (I read several other of Shakespeare's plays without being forced.) Red Badge of Courage. The Scarlett Letter. The Crucible. Interestingly enough, I was forced to read the Fellowship of the Ring and the Two Towers, and read the Hobbit and the Return of the King on my own. (Those are on my list.) How that happened: When I was in high school, "Honors" English read the four books, 1 each year. "College prep" English did not. My freshman year of high school (way back in '79 - '80) I had "college prep" English, which I excelled in, bringing me into "Honors" for my Sophomore and Junior years, which I got low "B's" in, and they decided my low B's weren't good enough so that in my Senior year I was back in "College Prep" English. Thus, my Sophomore and Junior years I was forced to read Fellowship and Two Towers.
In high school, I once had an earth science textbook that was thoroughly vandalized by the student who had it the year before. The off-color comments on many of the pages and diagrams were nothing short of brilliant. Of course, I came across as the only kid in class who laughed uncontrollably at tectonic plates, igneous intrusions, and the fact that milky quartz can be identified by conchoidal cleavage.
This isn't generally a crowd favorite but Catcher in the Rye was a big one for me. I'm not so keen on Tom Sawyer, though. Bit of a bore. To Kill a Mockingbird was great as well, and Grapes of Wrath was far from the miserable dross that a friend had made it out to be. I never read the Giver.
Dubliners was the big one for me (along with the usuals - Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamlet, Macbeth). Luckily I had a teacher who was really into it and made it entertaining. We only read six of the stories (Araby, Eveline, Two Gallants, The Boarding House, Counterparts, and Clay) in class, but they inspired me to read the rest. It was totally worth it. Oh, and Their Eyes Were Watching God. Had to read it in high school and didn't, but then I had to read it for college and figured it would be in my best interests if I did. It was, and despite the regionalism it had a great message.
I honestly can't complain much about the book I've had to read in high school this far, aside from a few brutal usuals (Shakespeare, I'm looking at you, your overrated). Let's see if i can remeber them all. Freshman year - Aside from Romeo and Juliet (most overrated piece of literature ever, sure it was good for it's time but it's time was 400 years ago. Idiotic melodrama in my opinion), and Lord of the Flies (I just didn't like it for some reason, I just didn't) - the books we read were excellent. It was here I was basically lured into science fiction since we read both Farenheit 451 and Ender's Game that year, I loved both books and have leaned towards sci-fi/fantasy ever since. We also read the Odyessy which was pretty good despite it's age (I've always beena sucker for mythology) Sophmore Year - Less impressive. We read a LOT of plays including two shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing and Julius Ceasar as well as Cyrano de Bergerac and Dollhouse and a few other plays I'm sure I'm forgetting. Again, they were probably good in the time of origin but pale in comparison today. The books that weren't plays were good though. Tale of Two Cities is still one of my favorite books of all time, it's an epic piece of literature and probably has the best ending of any book I've ever since read. One of the few pieces of older literature that I think truly stands the test of time. There was also, Dragonsong by Anne Macaffery - which I thought was alright, not good enough to warrant me picking up the rest of the series though - it was better than reading something else of questionable quality in it's place. Junior Year - This year has brought some good reads for the most part. The only real downer was Huckleberry Finn (again, good in it's time but it's time has passed). There was the Catcher in the Rye which I thought was really good, gave an interesting point of view on the world. There was the Human Comedy which wasn't too bad, albeit a bit too romanitc. We read the Great Gatsby too, which I think was another very good piece of classic literature - a really true portrait of rich people. We recently finished In Dubious Battle by Steinbeck, which also wasn't bad - a very good potrait of revoultion. We started Arthur Miller's Crucible recently and I'm thinking this is finally a play I'll end up liking, it's a great piece of social commentary. I also had a science fiction and fantasy elective this year. I was sort of dissapointed by it, we read the Time Machine and the Hobbit - which are good books but I had already read them before taking the class, I was expecting to read something I hadn't read before. Oh well, it was an easy A knowing each book back to back.
The Great Gatsby. That was surprising seeing as most other books we had to read were complete crap. I didn't like To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, the Crucible, or the Scarlet Letter.
The Curious Incident of the dog in the night time. by Mark Haddon. In my last year of high school. Alot of the other books I read before my final year were just bad. There was one about a person who designed the coolest shoes ever or something. I never done literature or anything like that. Just plain old mainstream English. I took the philosophy of reading as little as possible for school related books. We did had 1984 and Of Mice and Men as study materials. But I really just relied more heavily on the film versions as points of study. I did read both though. I cant remember too much of the meat of either one. The ending of Of Mice and Men did leave an impact.
We just got done reading Romeo & Juliet last month. I think that it may have been somewhat enjoyable if it weren't for all the "melodrama" as you put it. (Which was the best way of putting it.) If Romeo and Juliet would have slowly fallen in love rather than 'love at first sight', then the plot would have been much more believable and more tolerable. I just cannot believe that the two of them could have both fallen in love with one another the moment their eyes met. The Nurse character was also very irritating, as was Mercutio. (Whom I had the misfortunate role of playing.) Our school is rather lackluster, to say the least, when it comes to education even though I'm in an Academic English class. It seems like the teacher is more oriented on taking full advantage of our fancy new lap-tops than she is teaching us how to read and write properly. Night by Elie Wiesel: This was an okay memoir. My real complaint towards it was that I'm a little doubtful towards there being truck-loads of dead babies being dumped into the incinerator. Not only this, but I've had to endure WW2 literature for the last five years in school and my tolerance has long since began to deteriorate. The Hound of Baskervilles: Can you say overrated? There were no characters worth following, the prose felt corpse-cold, and I really wasn't all that caught up in the mystery of it. Even if I do not like some literature, I try to at least respect it. In this case, I don't even bother. Romeo & Juliet: I whole-heartedly agree with Anthem on this one. ...So I haven't had much luck with books I've been forced to read. I was lucky enough to read one good story though... The Odyssey by Homer: This was a pretty great Epic. It was quick in pace and was certainly entertaining throughout. I loved the fact that Odysseus was kinda stupid, it almost felt like the character of Ash from the Evil Dead series for me.
When I was a kid my grandma gave me the book "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn" for Christmas. I didn't want to read no book about trees or Brooklyn or little girls in the depression era. But because it was my beloved granny who gave it to me, I went ahead and read it to humor her. I LOVED it! It is still one of my favorites to this day!
1984, George Orwell. On Shakespeare; whilst it's true that his plot and characters can be extremely weak at points, it's the quality of the writing itself that makes him one of the great writers, in my opinion. And it's generally agreed that Romeo & Juliet is one of his weakest works, despite its enduring fame. My personal favorite work of Shakespeare is Much Ado About Nothing.
I've hated pretty much everything I've ever been forced into (read: Twilight Series), but a book that I was reluctant to pick up at first and came out enjoying immensely was The Fan Man, by William Kotwinkle.
I've been forced to read Skelling by David Almond at my English class. Homework was to read the first chapter, I sat down to read it and didn't put the book down until I'd finished it. Unluckily the rest of my class were really slow readers and I spent the next two weeks half asleep rereading the book in class. Holes is another great book, very good plot, I was forced to read that as well. Can't remember the author though.
Hamlet. I had to read it for a Liberal Arts class in college. After reading Shakespeare in High School I was not looking forward to it, but it was really good. My favorite play of his and of all.
Catcher in the Rye - studied it for GCSE, love it I'm just not so keen reciting for the examiners every 'significant moment/character/motif' in the flipping book...complete with amateur analysis of Holden's frame of mind. Yes, he's depressed, yes I'd rather just read the book without writing insufferable essays on it. lol
