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The worst book you ever had to read for School


Alwyn

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I only actually read one assaignment, Zigzag children, by Grossman. So lame I couldn't finish it. The rest I scraped through (Or occasioanlly, didn't) by being more or less awake in class. The key to lit grades, IMO, is verbosity. My highest lit grade ever was a 90 on antigone and the doll house, which i had not read, but managed to put together some eight pages on nothing at all. On zigzag, I was too bored to even bother, and wrote just two. Got 50.

I didn't actually read Doll House, but heard enough about it to rather despise it. (I was in a class with all the theater majors, so bits of it got acted out too.)

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Utvandrarna, by Vilhelm Moberg.

Actually, the book isn't *that* bad. It's the damn 20 pages of questions "on the lines of "Who was person X's uncle?" we had to answer.

Damnit, I hated that book.

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When I was a senior in high school, I really liked Catcher in the Rye. Then I read it again in my 20's and hated it. Holden Caufield is one whiny little mofo who could use a good whipping. :whip:

Heaps of emo kids would like to give you a whipping. :lol:

I had to read "Great Expectations" for school. I just couldn't.

Still passed the assignment related to it... somehow.

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Overanalysis seems to be the biggest issue in disliking the books that I have had to read.

Agreed! I hate it when teachers have to pick through the book, word by word to explain it, especially wehn they are analysing the words of a translated version and everyone has a different version of it. The worst case of this however for me was when in thenth grade in my English Book there was a passage from the first book of Harry Potter (I live in France so English is a second language here and so our books are filled with sutff like Harry POtter, simple stuff). It's this one where they are describing his school and talking abotut eh moving staris and disappearing doors and so one. My English teacher analyzed the crap out of that thing. going on about how the doors represent opportunities that are open to us in the fuutre, thanks to our studies that the stairs represneted the inconstance of life... Biggest load of crap I've ever heard!

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Guest macaroni penguin

"Transcendental Studies" by Franz Liszt. That piece was difficult in reading as well as on the piano.

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"Transcendental Studies" by Franz Liszt. That piece was difficult in reading as well as on the piano.

Franz Liszt was always difficult. I liked his music because if you could play it you could really show off and dazzle people. Beethoven was always my favorite.

What always bothered me was Edvard Grieg. I loathed (and still do) his music with his wierdo chord progressions.

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I didn't read as many classics at school as most of you seemed to have; most of the stuff we were forced to read at the schools I went to were popular novels. There was the requisite Shakespeare, Lord of the Flies, and some other classics like Bronte, but that was pretty much it. I guess they thought we'd engage more with more modern titles, but it still makes me feel disadvantaged somehow... :/

That said, there were lots of books that they made us read which sucked horribly. One of the earliest I remember (read when I was a young teenager) was The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig; I have no idea how someone could make the subject of life in a Soviet-run labour camp in Siberia so painfully dull. I quite hated Nick Earls' 48 Shades of Brown; the tale of a pretentious teenager told as annoyingly and pretentiously as humanly possible. I also hated Possession by A.S. Byatt for similar reasons; the whole tone of the book was so conceited, and it was dull to boot. There were many times when I wanted to throw the book as hard as I could out the window, it made me so mad; the only thing stopping me was the fact I needed to pass that particular assignment. :unsure:

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Count me as another hater of Catcher in the Rye. I also depised A Tale of Two Cities. That is the most f-ing boring book I have ever had to read in my entire life. I thought Of Mice and Men was okay when I first read it, but now I just find it boring. Romeo and Juliet is the worst Shakespeare Other than that I found the books I've had to read fairly enjoyable.

I liked the Catcher the first time that I read it. The second time around made me wonder why I read it the first time.

A Tale of 2 Cities is a yawn. IF you're an insomniac, this book could cure it.

Of Mice and Men was decent.

Romeo & Juilet bored me to tears. I always liked Macbeth and Hamlet.

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Second Effi Briest. :sick:

I don't think Effi Briest was the worst book I have ever read in school, but I think that Fontane has written other books that might be more enjoyable for high school students. I did not really like it.

I honestly can not remember the worst book, because we were lucky and our teacher didn't force us through the classics of socialist (not just Russian) literature.

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Romeo & Juilet bored me to tears. I always liked Macbeth and Hamlet.

Agreed. The only Shakespeare I ever had to read in school was Romeo And Juliet (though i have seen, read and acted alot of other Shakespeare), and it occurs to me that although everyone knows the story if you haven't read it you dont really know the story. It's not exactly the epic tragic love everyone makes it out to be. Hamlet and Macbeth rock my socks, those two and a Midsummer night's dream are great, too bad we never had to read that in school, of course they probably would have ruined it for us anyway.

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too bad we never had to read that in school, of course they probablyw oudl have ruined it for us anyway.

isn't it funny how professors have that uncanny knack for doing that very thing?

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The two of these both relate to Regina's mention of books made to depress teenagers and send them over the edge. I did not like the Lord of the Flies, but even worse was the Great Chocolate War. As books that seem to center around how cruel kids and cliques can be, it really was not my cup of tea. I enjoyed Shakespeare's storylines, but it was a slow pain in the ass having to keep bouncing to the bottom of the page to read the modern day translation. And the worst book I had to read in terms of the main character was Gone with the Wind. Don't get me wrong, I was all for reading the book given that it is a classic. And I have an enjoyable time normally with watching or reading period pieces so as to realize just how poorly I would have done in those societies back then, with regards to "stations" in life. But every time Scarlet O'Hara does something that no other woman would have thought of doing at that time, she managed to do it with an attitude or comment that would annoy me and offset any points she had made from her independence.

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The Scarlet Letter. UGH. I couldn't stand it and the teacher made us read every word (i.e., quizzes that you couldn't pass by reading the cliff notes, etc). I'm really surprised it took until the end of page 3 on this thread for someone to mention it.

I also despised Slaughterhouse Five when I read it (junior in HS, i think?). Now it is one of my favorite novels.

Great Expectations was awful, too.

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Also surprised it took so long to get a Scarlett Letter mention. Easily the most gruelling and painful High School reading assignment. A couple hundred pages of absa-fucking-lutely nothing happening but some whiney, 'woe is me' bitches lamenting over their fuckups. They were ungodly irritating.

Catcher in the Rye, thoughtless, impotent teen angst on steroids. Holden Caufield needed to get his ass beat more than a few times.

And Moby Dick needed an editor to cut the 250 or so useless pages out.

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