Current Events > What was your favorite book from the ones you had to read in HS?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Huck Finn

In high school. I can remember thr following official novels taught over extended blocks of instruction. We read gobs of short stories though in English throughout the four years. I went to a small high school in rural America over 20 years ago. I don't remember there being in any controversy about kids reading any of them.

A Day No Pigs Would Die.
Of Mice and Men
The Oedepus cycle
Fahrenheit 451
1984

Gatsby was actually good. I liked of mice and men bc it was short.

The Greek plays were pretty interesting too.

The New Testament?

probably The Odyssey

school made me hate reading because of all the overanalyzing and shit. I used to read like 3 books a week before 8th grade

The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner

brestugo posted...

That's unfortunate. The way our teacher did it really got people involved. After seeing the play we had to write an essay and IIRC, no one got lower than a B.

Definitely a great way to do it. Much more involved than just reading out sections in turns, as they quickly gets dreary and puts kids off.

Probably Macbeth. I remember it being the only story where I actually read ahead to see what would happen. The foreshadowing and the symbology had me hooked.

The Killer Angels. It was the book the movie Gettysburg was based off of.

The boxcar children

Oh we read Killing Mr. Griffin in 8th grade. That wouldn't fly today!

Superfudge

pfh1001 posted...

The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner

I can't imagine the average HS kid dealing well with the Benji chapter.

Slaughter House V

To Kill A Moc- lol no.

Probably The Canterbury Tales.

Ozarhok posted...

To Kill a Mocking Bird, also one of my favorite books

*vomits*

Animal Farm I suppose. I also liked All Quiet on the Western Front.

But I also recall a summer reading project where we got to choose which books we read. I selected A Clockwork Orange for some reason and it became my favorite book.

Native Son
Crime & Punishment
Animal Farm
Wuthering Heights
Beowulf

Honestly, I enjoyed pretty much every assigned reading in high school except Beloved; fuck, how I hated that book.

We read The Hobbit in 7th grade.

Nosferatu_Zodd posted...

Slaughter House V

That's one of my all-time favourite novels.

I didn't discover Vonnegut until my mid 20s though.

Toss up between Mockinbird or Lord of the Flies

in Literature class when i was in high school i enjoyed reading Grape of Wrath since it was a short book and the story was really good to breeze through. that and reading the Grendel story in the main Literature class text book

Canterbury Tales. I was extremely disappointed there werent more.

I enjoyed Huck Finn too. I had read it years before, but I remember my English teacher getting super passionate about what a racist douchebag Tom Sawyer was. Cant say I disagree.

I was going to say I hated all the required reading, but then I remembered Animal Farm was required and liked it well enough.

I know the Great Gatsby is popular, but man I could never connect with that book. It was required reading in high school and college for me, and I could just never get myself to sit down and read it all.

I don't think I ever read a book in high school that wasn't about racism. Except maybe Fahrenheit 451

It's a tossup between Lord of the Flies (inspired my username, actually) and One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest.

I didn't have a required read in highschool from what I remember, but in middle school I did really like animal farm.

Bless Me Ultima

Animal Farm followed by The Great Gatsby.

If we go back to elementary, Johnny Tremain and Number The Stars were the ones I liked the most.

Honestly, I cant remember which ones we had to read and which ones I chose to for the most part.

I do remember really enjoying Lord of the Flies, Frankenstein, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Of Mice and Men, Macbeth and Henry V. We were definitely made to read the Shakespeare plays, plus a couple of others but those were may favourites.

There are a number of other books that I loved reading in that era but I know that the school didnt make us.

Night
fantastic book

Payzmaykr posted...

We read The Hobbit in 7th grade.

Came in to say The Hobbit.

WizardofHoth posted...

in Literature class when i was in high school i enjoyed reading Grape of Wrath since it was a short book and the story was really good to breeze through

Are you sure you dont mean another book, maybe another Steinbeck book Of Mice and Men? Grapes of Wrath is not a short book, and I personally did not find it breezy either.

Master_Bass posted...

I was going to say I hated all the required reading, but then I remembered Animal Farm was required and liked it well enough.

I know the Great Gatsby is popular, but man I could never connect with that book. It was required reading in high school and college for me, and I could just never get myself to sit down and read it all.

Ill be honest, Ive always found it hard to connect with a lot of books that are considered to be American classics. The Great Gatsby and The Old Man and the Sea are some of the ones that immediately spring to mind.

DuranOfForcena posted...

Things Fall Apart

This is the one I remember the most often, so I guess that makes it my favorite.

furb posted...

I can't imagine the average HS kid dealing well with the Benji chapter.

It was an AP class at the best public school in my state.

And the Benji chapter was beautiful.

No I didnt read any other Steinbeck book at the time, .

I do mean it that Grapes of Wrath was pretty short and im a fast reader so i breezed through the book beore anyone else in my class back then. So dont frikkin argue with me, buster

The_Yahtz09 posted...

Came in to say The Hobbit.

Are you sure you dont mean another book, maybe another Steinbeck book Of Mice and Men? Grapes of Wrath is not a short book, and I personally did not find it breezy either.

I never read a single one. Always faked my way through the assignments by responding to prompts with generalisms that could be true for any story.

WizardofHoth posted...

No I didnt read any other Steinbeck book at the time, .

I do mean it that Grapes of Wrath was pretty short and im a fast reader so i breezed through the book beore anyone else in my class back then. So dont frikkin argue with me, buster

oh, I did go back and read Grapes of Wrath like 4 years after high school (where I blew it off) and it actually became my favorite story ever.

FAQ-Checker posted...

Huck Finn

yeah

Ender's Game

Slaughterhouse Five hooked me enough to check out other works by the same author.

To Kill a Mockingbird stuck with me enough to buy my home schooled niece a copy in her teens because it was such a positive memory for me 20 years later.

Bottom of the barrel for me was A Separate Peace. A slog to get through, found it really boring, and wanted to kill myself when our teacher gave it to us sophomore year, after having already been assigned it freshman year.

Lord of the Flies

Aztex posted...

I can't remember the name of it but was a white/orange cover with a black silhouette of soldiers walking across something and it was about soldiers. Had some cuss words in it as well not very long either but I enjoyed it this was 15+ years ago or so now

Maybe The Things They Carried? Its actually a collection of vignettes all tied together by the Vietnam War.

To Kill a Mockingbird easily. Would be Fahrenheit 451 if I was ever required to read it :(

FAQ-Checker posted...

Huck Finn

That would be an interesting book to read aloud to the class

WizardofHoth posted...

No I didnt read any other Steinbeck book at the time, .

I do mean it that Grapes of Wrath was pretty short and im a fast reader so i breezed through the book beore anyone else in my class back then. So dont frikkin argue with me, buster

Then be accurate with your statements. If you read it quickly and found it easy, thats fine. It is objectively not a short book though, particularly by required HS reading standards, so I thought you may have meant the authors other work that is well known for being a short and quick read.