Best book you were forced to read?

Normally I hate academic English classes because all they do is force kids to read stuff that's considered "classic" but clearly are acquired tastes. And long. And dull. And have readily available Cliff's Notes, so no one reads them anyway.

But has anyone here been forced to read something (most likely in school) that they actually really liked? Not just thought it was okay. Actually really liked and would probably get a hankering to read again at least once.

I can think of three. But don't ask me to recount why I really liked them, because it's been six to eight years on each.

Flowers for Algernon - Read it freshman year in HS. All I remember about it was the style (which was somehow very readable for me) and the basic plot about the retarded man who gets admitted into lab tests and becomes a genius for a while. And he meets some girl. Or something. But I remember I loved it, kept it, and have it stored somewhere.

Watership Down - Again, freshman year in HS. Bunnies run from a construction site to find a new home. That's all I remember. That, and the fact that it was pleasantly darker and more violent than I'd expected.

Watchmen - Yes, the graphic novel. Junior year in HS. Now that teacher kicked ass!

 

Oh my God... you must have had the coolest teacher ever!

I didn't think it would be all that great, but I really loved Gulliver's Travels. It was entertaining and a great satire of the society then, and still can be applied to our society today.

 

Ooh, that's tough! I read some amazing books my senior year of HS. I think my favorite was probably Snow Falling on Cedars. Or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Or even possibly The Great Gatsby

I really liked 90% of the literature I read in high school...and since high school, I've read a lot of the ones I thought I didn't like, only to realize that I do like them now. I just wasn't mature enough to read them at the time.

 

The summer before I started high school, I was assigned this reading project, but I forgot the title of the book, and i wish I could have a copy. It was about a girl who gets killed, she watches over her family and murderer in her afterlife and only passes on after something is recified. I can remeber one distict symbol that was either in the novel,or something I used to symbolize the novel: a broken snowglobe with a penguin inside. What is that derned book!?

 

Was it The Lovely Bones?

 

I checked, and you are right! How'd you know, just wandering?

 

I've never been forced to read a single book in my entire life.
Though my friend pressured me into reading a book called 'Cuba' by some writer I now can not remeber the name of.
In short, it was OK, about a second Cuban revolution.
Didn't really strike a nerve, didn't really hate it.
I don't remeber who the writer was... I might search for it and try to find it on Amazon or somthing.

 

I read it last year. Very interesting book, very different. Not quite what I expected.

 

Wasn't what I expectd either, but I started school already liking my english teacher.

 

So far? The Giver has seemed the best to me- it's eloquent and thoughtful in a very simple and straightforward way.
I expect to have my mind blown in the next few years of reading though, so maybe that's just temporarily at the top of the list.

 

Siddhartha by Herman Hesse has to be the one I loved the most that I was forced to read.

Another was Of Mice and Men.

 

Definitely Animal Farm and 1984. Though Macbeth is a close second.

 

That reminds me. One of my friends was incensed that our eighth grade English teacher rejected his book report on Animal Farm, because she didn't want him to report on a book below his reading level!

DOIK!

(I have had the occasional gem among my teachers. As well as the occasional dirt clod.)

 

Missing the forest for the trees Cog, they're missing the forest for the trees.

 

Macbeth was another story I found surprisingly good. Animal Farm... not so much.

 

Of Mice and Men. It thought it sounded crappy but I really enjoyed it.

 

My teacher assigned us to write an alternate ending. That rocked! But I liked the original.

 

Yea, I was shocked at how much I enjoyed Macbeth as well.

 

The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

 

I am gonna be reading Macbeth this year coming up...Thank god I get to read British Literature now instead of American. =D

 

Oh my gosh!!! I love Macbeth. I've read it twice You'll love it. (if you're anything like me).

I wasn't forced to read it, though. I love Shakespeare and fully enjoy everything I read of his. I really enjoyed Tom Sawyer, though, and I didn't choose to read that.

 

Oh I am going to go see the play with my mom...but I'm too lazy to read it without a teach telling me to. =D

 

I forgot about 1984. That ranks right up there, as well, from junior year. And I was really surprised myself at how I liked Macbeth, because I normally can't stand Shakespeare. Maybe it's because we read through it as a class, with lots of footnotes and discussion. So I actually understood everything that happened.

I'm surprised at how much response this thread got so quickly. ALL HAIL MY RELEVANCE!

 

Have you ever read the rest of the series? The second one is called Gathering Blue and the third is Messenger. They are all so amazing!

 

Last year I took prose fiction in college and we had to read Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. It sounded horrible because I HATE war books but this one was so good that i bought a copy for myself. I've read it at least three times now!