I'm glad someone else nominated Animal Farm. I was a teenager who was fairly interested in reading. I vividly remember sitting in the shade of the shed in our backyard reading Animal Farm from cover to cover in one weekend (I didn't sit in the shade of the shed for the whole weekend). I'd say I've re-read the story maybe three or four times over the years.
For me, it was the Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas. My mother handed it to me one day and told me she'd take away my Goosebumps books if I didn't start reading classics. I read Man in the Iron Mask, then spent the next five years reading almost nothing but classics. Someone mentioned Macbeth. I agree with that one, though I think Hamlet was a little better than Macbeth. Hamlet seemed more complete and polished somehow.
Catch-22 is a work of mind-bending genius! for me the best book I've been forced to read is Of Mice And Men. Wins hands down.
I mostly did not enjoy the books I had to read in high school, but there were a few exceptions. Animal Farm by George Orwell The Giver by Lois Lowry All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich-Maria Remarque Lord of the Flies by William Golding The Giver is probably my favorite of these, but the others are also enjoyable.
I read The Giver and all its sequals in middle school, I think they sicced that on us too early, that and Father's Arcane Daughter.
The Outsiders, definitely. I always found that whole 'Greaser' scene to be very cheesy and cliché, but halfway through the book I was finishing it on my own and was truly inspired. Now it's gone on to be one of my favorites. Another would have to be Gathering Blue, a book I'd seen a lot but never had the desire to read, and it ended up being amazing. I have now learned not to typecast books so quickly because, surely, I could be missing out on something great.
Percy Jackson & The Olympians I hated this series. Even though it is for upper elementery kids, my brother forced me to read it and I hated it. It's too fast paced and has the cliche & cheezy first person view of a special kid. Like that's new. Maybe it's just me, but I feel bad for school kids because there books are going from good to bad.
The best two novels that I was forced to read in AP English were The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and A Prayer for Owen Meany. I reread these two books whenever I find the time.
Emma, for my british literature class. For the most part it was incredibly boring, but the character developement was done so well it was inspiring.
Haha...this reminds me of when our Sophomore year english teacher made us read A Clockwork Orange as a class not realizing how risque it was. We got to the rape scene, then she was like "soooo.....who wants to read Flowers for Algernon?" God, I hated that teacher.
Um well when I was about twelve I got in trouble at school for punching a boy in the face who'd spit on my sister. When I got home I was terrified of getting my ass beaten, but instead my mom made me read Great Expectations and than write an essay. I loved that book and still do. I never told my mom though.
Cold Sassy Tree and Ethan Frome. My junior year english teacher had strange taste in literature. He is most definitely my favorite teacher of all time, though. At my school we dont read Lord of the Flies until senior year, but I've already read it and I love it. Definitely LOVED To Kill a Mockingbird... There was one my teacher made me read because he knew I'd love it. It's called City of Glass and it's by Paul Auster. He had a version of it in graphic novel form and I devoured it like apple pie. Highly reccomended.
Probably Lord of the Flies... though Les Miserables was pretty good, too, since I originally thought it would suck.
Currently, I'm reading The Good Earth, and i have to say that I dread the day I have to turn it back in for that piddly bit of cash to buy next semester's books. Drats
My favorite would have to be The Scarlett Letter I don't know why no one else mentioned that. I started out thinking I would hate it, and it ended up being one of the best books I've ever read. Kudos to my search teacher, she made us read lots of good books.
The Secret Garden, that was recomended to me by a writing agent. And The Little Prince, my uncle made me read it, it taken only 10 minutes of my time and found it a rather sweet little book.
Probably Animal Farm. I don't like many books/short stories that I'm forced to read at school, but I did like this one.
Of Mice and Men. One of the shortest books I've ever read (around 100 pages) but also the saddest by far.
MissEnvy - I love that quote in your signature. That was one of the more memorable ones from the series. I also like that one about fear in a name and whatnot. I can't remember it. Hang on, I'll get it. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.
Many of them: Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men, the Pearl. In particular, I thought I was going to detest Slaughterhouse-Five simply because I found Catch-22 to be very confusing, and my AP Lit teacher compared the two. I actually ended up liking Slaughterhouse-Five so much it's become one of my favorite novels. The same can be said for the Great Gatsby. It looked so .... boring at first. It actually was, initially. It wasn't until a bit in that I actually started to get into the storyline, and by the end I liked the book so much I also would consider it a favorite.
Roll Of Thunder, Hear My Cry talks about racism back then and how screwy society was. It's a good book, I remember getting the book and thinking somewhere along the lines of "this looks boring" but i took it home and finished the book in the day. Another book is Lord Of The Flies.
Uh...I can't think of any except Dante's Inferno...I really liked his messages. But I never actually read most of the actual text...it confused me too much. >.<
