[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 117 KB, 528x768, their_eyes_were_watching_god3.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611128 No.2611128 [Reply] [Original]

books we read in high school that we fucking hated
>pic related

>> No.2611142

What did you hate about that book?

>> No.2611144

I was unschooled until I entered college. So I never read books in high school, because I didn't go.

>> No.2611157

It's hard for me to choose which I disliked more: Girl With a Pearl Earring or Things Fall Apart.

>> No.2611163 [DELETED] 

The Outsiders.. yes we read it in highschool.

>> No.2611165

>mfw i refused to read books i didn't want to and still passed. ^_^

>> No.2611167

A Separate Peace

>> No.2611175

>>2611157
I don't understand, you can't read a painting like you read a book

>> No.2611184
File: 35 KB, 326x500, 662.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611184

>>2611128

OP, the book you posted is great, imo. I read it in high school and loved it.

>this, on the other hand...

>> No.2611186

>>2611167
A thousand times, this. Does ANYONE like this book? I've never even heard it mentioned outside of discussions of "books i read for school i hated"

>> No.2611188

>>2611128
OP were you an IB kid?

>> No.2611192

Fucking Growing Up on Mango Street.

>> No.2611196

>>2611186
Even Harold Bloom dislikes the book. He calls it a "period piece," just like everything else he doesn't like

>> No.2611198

>>2611192
Also a Period Piece.

>> No.2611199

Lord of the Flies

Any time I engage someone in a discussion about "favorite books they read in high school," this title inevitably comes up and I know immediately that I can never be close friends with that person.

>> No.2611201

>>2611199
That's a period piece, too.

>> No.2611203

Heart of Darkness. Maybe now that I'm older, I would appreciate it more, but it was awful trudging that book in a class full of people with little to no interest in reading.

>> No.2611205

fahrenheit 451

keep in mind, i was a pleb back then

>> No.2611210

>>2611128
Fucking Roll of Thunder was a piece of shit, why would British children give a shit about blacks from the southern US

>> No.2611213

>>2611203
Another period piece.

>>2611205
Again, a period piece.

>> No.2611214

>>2611192

Oh God yes, The House on Mango Street wouldn't have been as bad as it was except my teacher made us cover it for damn near three months- and this book was fewer than 200 pages.

>> No.2611215
File: 56 KB, 550x550, 1282168948971.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611215

That book is garbage. One in a hundred million other books about women coming of age. Its only significance is its historical importance. Yes, it was my least liked book as well.

>> No.2611220

The Red Badge of Courage. That was the only book i didn't like that i was forced to read in high school.

>> No.2611222

>>2611213
Why do you feel the need to point out "a period piece"?

>> No.2611227

>>2611222
I'm not making this stuff up. All of these are Harold Bloom's actual opinions. Just thought I'd let you know.

>> No.2611228

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

>> No.2611240

>>2611227

What

>> No.2611264

>>2611210
>why would British children give a shit about blacks from the southern US
Gee, I dunno, maybe because reading about something different can be fun/enlightening/sexually arousing?

>> No.2611268

I'm with OP, I hate that book even to this day.

>> No.2611280
File: 109 KB, 510x680, tinkercreek.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611280

>the bug was pouring out an infinite amount of miniature porous vividly chartreuse cells thta sat upon my hand, ingraining itself in the brownish pores of my epidermal structure, they say God is an epidermal structure, there was a flood there other day, it was beautiful in a way as it wiped out my town.


JESUS SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STOP TALKING ABOUT NOTHING YOU DUMB NATURIST CUNT!

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is the very definition of hot air.

>> No.2611299

>>2611188
yupppppp :/ regret

>> No.2611304

As I Lay Dying

The most pretentious piece of garbage I have ever read, and I'm not joking

>> No.2611308

>>2611184
OP here.... I absolutely fucking hated that book. I read it from cover to cover, and literally just vomited. However, nothing is worse than anthem... NOTHING

>> No.2611311

>>2611144
dude wat how

Not even homeschooled?

>> No.2611312

>>2611308

I actually thought Anthem was a lot better than Atlas Shrugged because it was like, 900 pages shorter, so I had to suffer less.

>> No.2611316

Everything I read.

>> No.2611317

>>2611157
You read "Girl With the Pearl Earring" in high school? That was sixth grade material for us.

Agree with OP, Their Eyes Were Watching God was fucking terrible

>> No.2611318

>>2611299
I was IB too!
Best friends!

>> No.2611319

>>2611184
I am really considering buying this just so I can hate it.

>> No.2611323
File: 23 KB, 400x400, gay ass bullshit.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611323

This may very well be the worst thing I've ever read.

>> No.2611326
File: 18 KB, 323x475, 535113-L.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611326

pic related needs to be in a book burning

>> No.2611327

>>2611312
Good point you bring up there. I'd wager any time spent on Ayn Rand is a giant waste of time though. Ugh.

>> No.2611330

>>2611319

She has some moments of strong writing, but it's such a haul to get to it it's hardly worth it, imo.

>> No.2611336

>>2611312
I guess that's true... there was a part of that book where she literally ranted for 53 pages... I counted

>> No.2611338

Fucking The Pearl. Made me unwilling to read Steinbeck for around ten years. Also, you Mango Street people, one of the teachers at the school I teach at assigns Mango Street each year and the students rage about how much they hate it.

>> No.2611341

>>2611336

Yeah I think everyone knows about the long, boring, overwrought, didactic as hell speech in it.

Most people hate her because of her philosophies. I just think she's a bad writer in general.

>> No.2611346
File: 33 KB, 240x400, Izzy Willy Nilly.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611346

It was middle school, but still, this is the worst book I ever read in my life no exaggeration. When I finished it for the book report I actually ripped the shit out of it and threw it in the trash.

Fucking self centered bitch.

>> No.2611348

>>2611338
when I was a junior in IB, they started making the freshman read mango street, and I actually spent less time studying for my IB exams than they did on doing the projects for the book

>> No.2611347
File: 35 KB, 278x475, a-separate-peace1.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611347

>> No.2611351

>>2611347
I just knew he was gay the entire time lol

>> No.2611352

The Alchemist.

>> No.2611357

>>2611348
In IB right now, HL Music, English, and History
>underage
whatever
anything to say about it in hindsight?

>> No.2611363

I never thought The House on Mango Street was too bad. Then again my class only stayed on it for three weeks at the most. However, spending a whole semester on The Bluest Eye unearthed a hatred I never knew I had for feminist literature.

>> No.2611364
File: 69 KB, 500x588, Matteson_Scarlet_Letter.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611364

Why did you have to describe how Pearl looks like a bird for two fucking pages?

Aside from that, I just didn't like it because it bored me to death. But as one anon said in this thread, my tastes were pretty pleb back then.

>> No.2611365
File: 718 KB, 1012x1518, johnny-tremain.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611365

This book.

Surprised I haven't seen Catcher in the Rye on here. Half of my friends that read it thought it was stupid as fuck. I loved it, though...
Oh, the second to last scene when he steps off the sidewalk and thinks he's falling forever... That was very well done.

>> No.2611366

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. It's random and I've never thought of it as a reading list book, but I still had to read it. I swear I could only read a chapter of that tripe before I just had it with trying to make myself read it.

>>2611228
I haven't read it since high school, but I really enjoyed Solzhenitsyn's book.

>> No.2611376

Books mentioned so far in this thread that I loved or was impressed by:
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Things Fall Apart
Lord of the Flies
Heart of Darkness

Books mentioned that I also hate:
Farhenheit 451

Hate is a strong word, but I read later that Bradbury wrote the thing in the basement of a UCLA library after work, on a typewriter he rented by the hour, and suddenly the book made sense.

Other books I hated:
Thoreau's Walden. Lost the will to read after the second multi-paragraph sentence.
Edgar Allen Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. I think Poe lost interest in his own book about five times while writing it, only to pick up the narrative again without bothering to skim the point he left off. A fucking mess and I have no idea why its printed, much less taught.

>> No.2611378

the Scarlet Letter

>> No.2611388
File: 338 KB, 598x800, 1329272557943.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611388

>that feel when you realize you are the only person that liked A Separate Peace

>> No.2611397

>>2611357
It won't be as worth it as you think it will be.
Sure, it's worth it, to an extent.
But we all had higher expectations of the end result.
If given the choice, I'd probably still do it again, though.

>> No.2611398

...
Tim?

>> No.2611400

>>2611319
Pirate it

>> No.2611402

I didn't like Walden.

>>2611304
I hated the beginning of this and then I started finding it hilarious.
>dat description of Addie as rotting cheese

>> No.2611403

>>2611388
I thought it was a good book. The dichotomy of friendship and jealousy explored was very interesting to me. I had to hide this fact from every other person in my school.

>> No.2611404

>>2611352
Seconded. A literal deus ex machina, no real point, trite ending, and people like it because "OMG SO SPIIRITUAL."

>> No.2611406

>>2611357
make sure the college you go to accepts all your HL's, or at least some of them... the college I wanted to go to made me retake some courses I had already done in IB... very dumb

>> No.2611408

>>2611365
I fucking loved catcher in the rye... you need new friends

>> No.2611412
File: 11 KB, 177x284, mockingbird.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611412

To kill a Mockingbird, and The Giver. (Actually i read these in eighth/seventh grade.)

>> No.2611416
File: 110 KB, 500x669, FOREVAR.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611416

>>2611412
I liked the Giver...
> MFW THIS BABY DEAD

>> No.2611425

catcher in the rye

reading that shit, while being quite a mentally psychotic person myself, made me annoyed as fuck, because almost all forms of media fail at trying to portray psychotics properly

>> No.2611438

>>2611412
I liked the Giver, not Mockingbird. Although the Giver made me realizes how bad socialism/communism would suck.

>> No.2611447

Johnny Tremain and Across Five Aprils. Fucking horrible.

>> No.2611450

>>2611376
>>2611402

You didn't like Walden!?

That makes me a bit sad..

Also, you read it in highschool?? Where do you two live?

I didn't really dislike any of the books I read in high school (I had fairly good teachers). The one I least preferred would have to be "Lord of The Flies" though.

>> No.2611451

Light in August by Faulkner
Is the rest of his stuff as awful?

Oh, and the Poisonwood Bible. Fuck that book.

>> No.2611452

>>2611425
I liked that but only because of how he loved his sister. That shit made me tear up.

>> No.2611462

>>2611438 I didn't like The Giver because of how it's government is. I could not stand what they did to people, especially the shot that made them not able to see color. That and how they killed the smaller baby. That was just bullshit.

>> No.2611469

I read "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" for an elective on the 1960's. I honestly hated EVERY SINGLE PERSON in that book, nothing but a bunch of self-center cunts who just did drugs and talked about how great they were.

>> No.2611478

>>2611462
That's true but that's kind of the point. It taught me a little bit about how cruel the world can sometimes be, especially during grade 3 or 5 or somewhere around there. I guess you could hate a book for that, but it's like hating 1984 because of the government. It's supposed to show how bad it is.

>> No.2611486

The Bean Trees

The Great Gadsby

To Kill a Mockingbird

(yes, I really hate the latter two)

Speak

>> No.2611492

>>2611478
The Giver would make people dislike the government more because, much like Brave New World and unlike 1984 it shows how easy it is to control people based on their desires and giving them shallow, basic happiness and how often, though we prize freedom, it leads to our own ruin. 1984 just gives a more run of the mill distopia where people are more obviously unhappy and you as a reader don't in any way want to live there. The Giver and Brave New World both have worlds where personally, I would be fine living in. In both people are ignorant, but happy and ultimately people would rather have an easy lie than a hard truth.

>> No.2611496

>>2611486
The Great Gatsby was great, why didn't you like it?

>> No.2611499

>>2611486
Oh god Speak was a god awful book. I had to force myself to read every page. Then I find out it's the normal summer book and not honors. FUCK.

>> No.2611503

>>2611492
Yes I see what you're saying, and this is happening in this day and age, people are so obsessed with the media they don't care about their freedoms.

>> No.2611511
File: 12 KB, 150x231, MangoStreet.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611511

Why is this piece of shit automatically made required reading in high school? There has GOT to be better books about Latinos.

>> No.2611518
File: 32 KB, 323x500, NineteenMinutes.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611518

this piece of shit

Worst thing I have ever read ever. I actually did burn my copy of it, last year when I was camping. It felt good, it felt really good.

>> No.2611528

Scarlet Letter
Every Steinbeck Novel (I think we read The Pearl and Mice and Men and I couldn't even force myself through Grapes)

>> No.2611529

>>2611518
That's horrible... Where are you from where they forced you to read that? Also, what the fuck, American education system? Why Jodi Picoult?

>> No.2611531

>>2611496
Boring as all fuck. Maybe it was a hit back in the day, but I feel like it's overrated. If the book was made about bootleggers instead of using them as a backdrop, I would've been more entertaining than a generic story about rich fucks.

>> No.2611532

>>2611531
>generic
wat

>> No.2611537

Death of a Salesman. Not only did I find it incredibly boring, but I took two different styles of English class and we read it in both, one in the first half of the year and one in the second. Then I got to a new school the next year and guess what the first book they had us read was?

>> No.2611538

>>2611528
>Scarlet Letter
You can't hate that book. Its short and a total essay fodder, second to Huck Finn,

>> No.2611545

>>2611529

Massachusetts, inner city public school, CP english teacher who had no idea what the fuck she was doing and read the entire book OUT LOUD to the class of drooling buffoons.

>> No.2611549

>>2611280
Oh, fuck this whore. I had to read An American Childhood. It was easily the most self-indulgent trash that I've ever read.

>> No.2611550

Their Eyes Were Watching God is great. My 10th grade English teacher had us reading fucking Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

>> No.2611557

>>2611531
From what I could briefly sift through your incoherent rambling, if you feel "bootleggers and rich fucks" is an adequate description of the book then you haven't read it at all.

>>2611537
>book
Play, and maybe if your teachers let you watch it instead, you might have recognized the brilliant dramatic construction of it all.

>> No.2611565

>>2611557
But that's what he would have preferred...

>> No.2611600

The Color of Water (funny how a book with a second grade reading level was being taught in the 11th grade)

The Yearling (probably the worst bildungsroman I've ever read)

Pride and Prejudice (even the girls in my AP Lit class hated this)

I liked Hear of Darkness and didn't totally hate A Separate Piece, although I love making fun of it.

>> No.2611609

>>2611557
It is about bootleggers and rich fucks, Bob Fagget. I read the book and I didn't like it. The theme of the book was about the emptiness of material wealth, which isn't really news to me.

>> No.2611610

>>2611557
+1

>> No.2611612

>>2611450
Western Michigan, I'm >>2611376

I've been trying hard to come up with a book as tiresome by an equally inauthentic authority for about 10 minutes to illustrate my problems with Walden, but its been hard.

The closest I've gotten is Hitler's Mein Kampf, but Hitler I feel was more concise.

>> No.2611626

The Scarlet Letter - bored me to death and I didn't find any of the characters interesting

A Separate Peace

House on Mango Street

The Alchemist - felt pretentious and overly didactic; every other sentence was a life lesson

>> No.2611627
File: 54 KB, 326x500, 2012nov3.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611627

>>2611388
You are not alone.

I don't really understand the hate for Lord of the Flies.
Scarlet Letter is a great book if you can get past Hawthorne's obtuse writing and it starts a little slow.

Also, I feel like House on Mango Street is only forced on high schoolers because of the Red Clown chapter, but it is overall a piece of shit.

Speaking of pieces of shit, pic related. My school tested it on some of us in the senior ap english class to see if they should include it and 20 out of 20 students fucking despised it, only one managed to make it all the way through. But technically i wasn't forced to read it...

Also Heart of Darkness is terrible.

>> No.2611640

the poisonwood bible was also kind of annoying, not the worst, but I didn't really like it.

>> No.2611644

I had no idea The House on Mango Street was such a commonly-assigned book - totally thought it was just a big Chicago public high school thing

>> No.2611655

Watership Down. Anthropomorphism sucks. Even Murokami's.

>> No.2611661

I didn't read anything in HS I didn't like, which is to say, I didn't read most of the assignments. Teachers spent the whole class going over everything they saw in the book and you were graded on how well you parroted their interpretations, not any insights of your own.

>> No.2611664
File: 12 KB, 380x304, confused.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2611664

>>2611655

>Watership Down
>Anthropomorphism

>> No.2611672

>>2611661
that's a shame, the vast majority of what we had to read in HS was great

>> No.2611677

I wasn't particularly a huge fan of Ms. Dalloway or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. I thought they possessed terrific prose and insightful commentary on the times from which they were written, but I don't think I've accumulated the life experience necessary to appreciate them yet.

My problem with Portrait was that it dragged on a lot in the middle and spent far too much time on the "going to Hell" stage in Part 3, but I loved the last two parts of the book and the ending.

Ms. Dalloway also got much more enjoyable around the end and I loved the character of Septimus, but the setting and timeframe were a little too detached from the modern era for me to appreciate the novel as a whole.

Overall though, these were books that I didn't particularly enjoy in High School, but I will probably reassess them in the future under different circumstances.

>> No.2612514

>>2611612
>Actually comparing Thoreau to Hitler

I don't think it's possible for me to hate you anymore. 10/10 will rage again later when I think back on your bullshit.

>> No.2612515

>>2611199
I'm glad I'll never have a friend like you :)

>> No.2612519

Wuthering Heights. That book proves that women are incompetent at anything pertaining to the arts.

>> No.2612521

>>2612519
I've always wondered why people like this shit

>> No.2612523

>>2611677
Septimus was the only good thing about that book, everything else in it was boring crap for girls. I think I wrote a paper on that book back in college about him and the development of psychology as it was happening at the time that the book was written

As far as the modernism movement goes, there were a lot of hits and misses happening there. Don't knock yourself for being 'immature' - it's called being a man and wanting to read manly stuff

>> No.2612524

>>2611144
explain how this worked
i had a period last year where i was really into reading stuff about "unschooling", must hear experiences

also yeah nobody liked their eyes were watching god, it was just there as a general reminder that black people weren't having a good time

>> No.2612526
File: 362 KB, 309x475, Like_Water_for_Chocolate_(Book_Cover).png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2612526

>> No.2612541
File: 48 KB, 332x475, sucks.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2612541

longest read ever. plus really boring unless you're into historical references throughout the text

>> No.2612864

>>2612514
Apology accepted and I'm glad you liked it. Although I don't know why you hated me in the first place.

>> No.2612901

>>2612521
Because its either the least ridiculous Gothic novel or the most focused Victorian novel, depending on how you look at it?

Because the novel has one of the most memorably subtle unreliable narrations, with a plot burden running directly counter to it?

Particular enjoyment comes from all the allusions to Victor Hugo's work.

>> No.2612923
File: 18 KB, 250x370, the-poisonwood-bible.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2612923

>>2611640

This motherfucker right here. Kingsolver is not a bad writer in my opinion, but the politics dominate the narrative to an intrusive degree. Several pro-U.S. characters are obvious strawmen, and important historical details are omitted or distorted.

For instance, while lecturing the reader on the evils of U.S. foreign policy, one of the intelligent, beautiful leftist characters criticizes the U.S.'s support of one particular warring faction in the Congo, claiming (not without reason) that they are partly responsible for the war and poverty in the region. However, she goes on to explain her support for the warring leftist factions as a "vote for doctors and teachers and peace", or something to that effect, while neglecting to mention that the Soviet Union and Cuba directly supplied the Congo with tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of millions of dollars of military equipment, far more than the United States or their allies.

Kingsolver exhaustively researched this novel, and should have known better than to engage in such reckless historical revisionism.

>> No.2613795

>>2611469
You know I read it as a 15 year old and though "Hell yeah I'm on the bus wooooo fuckin' drugs man," and I am so glad to have grown up a little. Reading it again, I can't find a single character that doesn't act like a cunt. I love Kesey as an author, but jesus.