The worst book you ever had to read for School

[Yana]

Despite the fact that I didn't like many of the books that were given to us to read in School, I was always able to find something in them that would earn my respect. There was always something good. Until I was forced to read Kafka's "The Trial" and Goethe's "Sorrows of the Young Werther". Never found anything good about those two books...

[morgoth]

Despite the fact that I didn't like many of the books that were given to us to read in School, I was always able to find something in them that would earn my respect. There was always something good. Until I was forced to read Kafka's "The Trial" and Goethe's "Sorrows of the Young Werther". Never found anything good about those two books...

you're a better person than I because once I hate something I hate it all.

[Arwen]

I'll toss a second vote to Catcher in the Rye, wholly overrated, if we'd needed 50's disenchantment I would have prefered Kerouac.

Just read quickly thru page one of this thread, it's great to see that there are other people who think some of the classics are crap!

Can't think what my most-hated one was. Probably something by a famous Canadian writer like Morely Callaghan or Margaret Lawrence.

I think partly we just hated them because we had to read them.

A collection of rambling essays by some guy called Emerson for my American Studies module. WTF? Dull beyond all belief.

Probably Ralph Waldo.

In typesetting, WF means wrong font, but I've always taken it to mean WTF, as you say.

[Yana]

I think partly we just hated them because we had to read them.

Oh, yes, I agree. Some of the books I hated in school, I reread later in life and actually quite liked them. You simply can't force these things, though I understand why it is done

[Arwen]

I like Of Mice and Men... Sound and the Fury was good too, hard to get through, but the class discussions of it really made me appreciate it more.

The one book I truly despised was A Separate Peace. Pointlessly dull tripe about a private school in the 1940's. The only part i found remotely interesting was when one of the characters went schizo and started rambling about the halucinogenic thoughts in his head.

I really liked Of Mice and Men.

But speaking of Faulkner, I find most of his stuff really hard to read simply because I don't understand what is going on or what he's trying to say.

But there's one called The Rievers (reivers?) that's quite good.

[morgoth]

Probably Ralph Waldo.

In typesetting, WF means wrong font, but I've always taken it to mean WTF, as you say.

Emerson...I would rather stick a gun to my head.

he meant WTF the way that you took it.

[Arwen]

ITom Sawyer was dull too.

Oh, come on! Tom Sawyer dull? Where's your sense of kid-dom? going to your own funeral, (or was that Huck Fin?) running around barefoot?

[pcv]

Speaking of Huckleberry Finn - to date, that is the only book I have never finished reading...and don't plan to.

Other miserable HS reading...Heart of Darkness (Conrad), Jane Eyre (Bronte), and Waiting for Godot (Beckett).

[Betara]

The Red Badge of Courage and The Scarlet Letter

[Ser Vlad]

As a HS English Teacher it is disconcerting to see so many who say they never read the assigned books...but I would be a hypocrit. That being said, I would have to say Lord of the Flies was the most frustrating thing I read in HS.

Oh, come now - if High Schools had books that were more interesting, children would be more inclined to read them.

As for books I didn't like... anything Shakespearian, honestly. Macbeth was OK, and we never read Hamlet in school, but overall, Shakespeare for me is a terribly overblown writer. I simply found his work dull; the concept is fine, but the execution? Terrible.

[emberling]

Huck Finn boring? What the heck?

Read it in the same American Lit class that made Scarlet Letter the dullest thing possible. Huck Finn was the most fun I've ever had reading a book for school. (I didn't think Tom Sawyer was that great though.)

[Analu]

Oh, come on! Tom Sawyer dull? Where's your sense of kid-dom? going to your own funeral, (or was that Huck Fin?) running around barefoot?

That was Tom Sawyer (going to his own funeral). And I agree. I loved Tom Sawyer! One of my favorite books I ever read for school. Someone should start a 'best book you ever had to read for school' thread. This would be one of mine.

[Lint]

That was Tom Sawyer (going to his own funeral). And I agree. I loved Tom Sawyer! One of my favorite books I ever read for school. Someone should start a 'best book you ever had to read for school' thread. This would be one of mine.

I was going to suggest the same thing, we need that thread.

Aww, how can anyone hate Shakespeare? From Macbeth alone, we get "Bubble bubble, toil and trouble."

This, was the other book I hated reading for school. Somehow I got to the end but I ended up renting Apocalypse Now (again on VHS) to get the gist of what it was all about

Funny thing is that I have watched the end of Apocalypse Now several times when I was a kid. My dad used to tape Disney cartoons for me to watch and Apocalypse Now was the movie right before my cartoons. My sisters and I always had to watch the end of that movie before I got to my cartoons. I always found the ending disturbing and now I know why I felt that way.

[Mr. X]

Huck Finn boring? What the heck?

Read it in the same American Lit class that made Scarlet Letter the dullest thing possible. Huck Finn was the most fun I've ever had reading a book for school. (I didn't think Tom Sawyer was that great though.)

I had a similar experience (10th grade American Lit.). I loved Huck Finn, though I thought the quality dropped once Tom Sawyer shows up in the story.

[redhead_ginny]

The Metamorphosis by Kafka (and it's only like 20 pages) and The Diary of Miss Jane Pittman. I about died of boredom on the second, and on the first, I'm normally a fairly fast reader but it took me days to finish it. It freaked me out too.

[Narishma Reborn]

I liked "Of Mice and Men" and "Catcher in the Rye"... but absolutely despised "The Scarlet Letter" Grr... just couldn't get through that damnable book. My eyes burned as I read it...

[morgoth]

Oh, come on! Tom Sawyer dull? Where's your sense of kid-dom? going to your own funeral, (or was that Huck Fin?) running around barefoot?

I think that was his loser buddy Huck Finn.

Speaking of Huckleberry Finn - to date, that is the only book I have never finished reading...and don't plan to.

I wish I made the same choice.

[Jaxom 1974]

Without getting through the whole thread at the moment...

Worst book in School (College level): Bleak House.

Worst book in School (HS level): Billy Budd

[csPopDog]

That would have to be Atlas shrugged. Did no one else have the misfortune of reading Ayn Rand for their English class?

[EHK for Darwin]

OK, back to the original thread though. I hated, absolutely despised Conrad's Heart of Darkness which I had to read for high school.

I'll second this one. I'm just remembering back how brutal that book was. Prose was irritating, symbolism (if all the shit my professor rattled on about was intended as such) overdone, and just mind numbingly boring. It's film version (Apocalypse Now) was infinitely better.

I'll also add any books that my professors assigned...that they themselves wrote. This usually concerned non-fiction drivel such as "Evil Capitalist Pigs: A case study of the power elite raping small children while they dine on the black lungs of immigrant mine-workers in small town Wyoming"

Than of course there's Shakespeare. Dreadfully painful to read. His shit just doesn't work for me. Paper-thin, single motivation characters; flimsy, hackneyed plots; unlikely coincidences; contrived circumstances; implausable reactions by characters to a number of provocations;...but it's alright because his prose is pretty!...BULLSHIT. Well written crap is still crap. King Lear was about the only one I could stomach and even that was pushing it.