To Kill a Mockingbird. No question.

It was good the first time I read it, back in 7th grade.
THEN, we had to read it in 8th grade at the same school.
Then 9th grade. Then 11th grade.

WTF? I HATE it. SO Much. >.>


Also "As We Lay Dying". It was ridiculously boring.

And, although I loved Of Mice and Men, WTF? 12th grade reading my ass. That was like.. 9th grade level at most. :c One of his longer stories, maybe, but that? It was simple for a 12th grader.



UGH. "Things Fall Apart" was horrid. >.>



Required reading that I LOOOVED was "The Great Gatsby", "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "The Crucible". :3
Most of my class hated The Crucible, but I loved it.

The only thing I was forced to read and did not end up liking later was The Lord of the Rings series. I literally had to force myself to read the book. I would set times that I would force myself to read and nothing else. ._. It had too much detail for my taste.

I hate required reading. Reading should be a choice, and if you have to make children read, give them a list to choose off of.

I don't really ever fully enjoy anything that is required of me to read. I reallly hated reading farenheit 451 though, I thought it was just dragged on and the ending was so stupid.

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. x___x
It made absolutely no sense from the start. Too many characters, no structure...it was like trying to read a kindergartner's crayon scribbles, lol. Plus, it was verrrrry long.

We had to do an essay on it, and I fudged it, not having read but a few chapters. Got a 95 on it...I don't have a clue how that happened, but I'm not complaining. =D

"100 Years of Solitude" had to read it for a summer assignment for my Ap english class. I read it twice and still did not understand anything but that the family had so much incest (and I mean graphic too) that anything else was kinda creepy. there were a couple neat concepts (like a guy who had yellow butterflies around him all the time) but they all died off and your left with a story about the family and it goes through so many generations... ugh... any one who was in my class knows of the torture of that book over summer.

On the most part I usually enjoyed whatever was given to us to read. Well, depending on the grade I was in anyway. Romeo and Juliet was boring and dull, and so was Julius Caesar. Nothing against Shakespeare, but only one or two if his plays actually interest me even a little, esspecially the closer it gets to their original forms. Sadly, I never got to read any of the ones I wanted to. Thats all I can remember from my Freshman year, and part of my Sophmore year. (That I disliked anyway, I really enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird in Sophmore year.)

My last year at school during my Junior English class, we read quite a bit, and I hated most of it, too. I remember liking The Crucible, and The Scarlet Letter, and various Edgar Allen Poe writings, but that was it. I hated Our Town, Death of a Salesman, The Great Gatsby, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and most of the short stories we had to read out of our Text Books, though I can't remember the names of any of them. One had something dealing with a guy meeting the devil, and the other was an old folk tale about twins being good/bad, right/left, etc.

I ended up in a Night School Senior English class, and that entire class was nothing but reading, analyzing, and writing. A lot of old poems, plays, and short stories. I didn't particularly like any of them very much except one, but I can't even remember the name of that. (Two men faking their names to get into the good graces of two women they liked? Maybe someone will be able to tell me what the title is.)

I was forced to read a book called the contender. It was about a young black boy in the inner city using boxing as a way to get out of the city and make money.

Yea, a young white girl from a small town can certainly identify with that....

So I asked my teacher why we had to read it.

Now that I am an adult I can come up with several bullshit ways to answer that question. The best being of course, so you as a young white girl can look out side of your own life to see how others are forced to live.

Instead my teacher told me, because boys wont read unless they like the book. Girls will read it because it is assigned.

I stopped reading it an took the C. I was able to piece together what was going to happen from what little I had read before the conversation.

In all my life I have never hated being told to do something as much as that moment. I also have never been more aware of just how "different" boys and girls can be treated.

I am not saying all teachers treat boys better, I am saying SHE treated boys differently.

I've never liked Tim O'Brien. I mean, there are several other books that I've been forced to read throughout high school and middle school but I could at least appreciate them as pieces of literature. I don't think O'Brien qualifies; all he ever does is repeat himself about how much he hated Vietnam. Even In the Lake of the Woods which had the potential to be excellent ended up being overly repetitious. -_-

Needless to say I'd never pick up another one of his books on my own.

i just don't like reading books that you are forced to read for English classes, they piss me right off!!!
(English classes aren't the classes to speak the language, English classes in Australian Schools are classes where you are taught about stuff like Shakespeare, grammer [can't spell obviously], and a heap more)

Actually, I didn't hate any of my required reading. I was fortunate enough to enjoy just about everything we read. Some of the reading, I even ADORED. o.o;

Originally Posted by TelstelNSG1

i just don't like reading books that you are forced to read for English classes, they piss me right off!!!
(English classes aren't the classes to speak the language, English classes in Australian Schools are classes where you are taught about stuff like Shakespeare, grammer [can't spell obviously], and a heap more)

That reminded me of something I used to think when I was little. English class is the same way here in the US, and I always thought when I was small, that in places like Australia it was "Australian Class." :lol:

Sorry for going off-topic.

Originally Posted by Junnith

Actually, I didn't hate any of my required reading. I was fortunate enough to enjoy just about everything we read. Some of the reading, I even ADORED. o.o;

I just tend to have a love-hate relationship with my required reading. I adored everything I read in Brit Lit (that is, Chick Lit) but hated a few of the works I read in my AP English class. I think it's because I have a tendency to dislike modern literature and have an easier time picking out faults with it.

Catcher in the Rye... but it wasn't a required reading. Oops. It's a seriously pretentious book, however... I hated how it used its style and its notorious name (for being the book lots of serial killers have read). I still hold the belief that they murdered people because the book was too crass.

A Prayer For Owen Meany.
Despised. The narrator is so down on himself, and is never able to simply resolve his own problems. All he does is mope and isolate himself from society, never taking that grand step towards a better life. Other characters bothered me, like Hester. Goodness gracious, the whole thing was just painful.

Some people might disagree with this one, but, A Separate Peace didn't float my boat, either. The entire time, I sat there wondering if the characters were all gay (nothing against that). But the way it's written, a lot of us felt that there was this strange, underlying tone of unknown orientation. That, coupled with the main's growing resentment towards his best friend, I just wanted to smack him. Such angst and woe, and I didn't need that. >.>

A prayer for Owen Meany wasn't required for me, but it made me cry. Then when they made 'Simon Birch' the movie based on it, I bawled like a baby.

My hated one was Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Don't misunderstand; it was an EXCELLENT book. But I read very fast. Like...a novel a day. So I ripped through it because it was so good. Then for the next few weeks we PICKED IT APART. Word by word.

Sentence by sentence. Chapter by chapter. I was ready to BURN the book itself when I was done! Ironic, because it's about burning books, obviously. I did enjoy it the first time I read it, but I just detest having to tear it apart and examine it bit by bit. I UNDERSTOOD the book. I could have written a 10000 word essay on how much I understood it. I just think that teacher was TOO thurough, ya know? Books should always be read to be enjoyed. They should not be torn apart and examined for tiny minutia that the author probably wasn't thinking about. They were probably just trying to write a really good story.

Our required reading was Romeo and Juliet and Of Mice & Men (by Steinbeck). For Romeo and Juliet we watched that modernised film version with that Leonardo Decaprio guy in it (I dont even know if I spelt that right.. as you can tell am I not a fangirl of his) and that was bearable, if only because we'd seen the film. I tell no lie, my english teacher was a hypocritical, arrogant little so-and-so with a voice like a vaccum cleaner. She just droned on and on.

And she insisted on reading Of Mice & Men chapter by chapter and spending at least 2 lessons after waffling on about it while we "took notes" (read: sat around doing absolutely nothing). Now, I can get through a book that thick in a single day and go back to write notes on it, so to spend about three months or more reading one book was a real strain on my patience. It got to the point where I was tempted to shove the book somewhere my teacher wouldn't like unless she actually started getting to the point.

Had she not been such a prat about it, I would have enjoyed Of Mice & Men. Sadly, she has put me off Steinbeck for life. It turned out to be one of the worst books I have ever read. Thankyou english teacher. Thankyou very much. :stare:

Romeo and Juliet was awful for me, since we had to read it about four times throughout my school career. It's a great play the first time. But after four or five, it gets to be awful.

I actually enjoyed Of Mice and Men, as much as it is possible to enjoy that book. But I had to read a book over winter break once... And I tried to read the Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner, and failed miserably. I couldn't get through the first ten pages without stopping and rereading half of it.

Oh, and Ceremony, Things Fall Apart, and also Cold Mountain and The Odyssey. I hate The Odyssey to no end now. I'll take the Iliad over that one anytime. Basically, almost everything we had to read for my 11th grade AP English class.


Oh yeah. And while reading it, Crime and Punishment was a punishment in itself. But after I finished it, I actually really realized how much I enjoyed it... Anyone else have an experience like that?

Hmm, well, i've liked most books i've learnt at school, even Hobsons Choice! (i forget the Author now xD)
I loved doing Shakespeare, i loved Steinbecks 'Of mice and men', and i loved 'The great Gatsby' by Fitzgerald.

I even loved most of the poetry we were taught, but thats probably because my teacher was into morbid poetry and we ended up doing Edgar Allen Poe :D :D

But there is one i tried to get into and just couldn't, and that was Arthur Millers play - 'Death of a Salesman', which was the first play of College.

I don't know why, i usually like plays, but i think perhaps it's because my mum told me it would be rubbish so i hated it before i even opened the book xD
Maybe i'll try again another time if i ever find the copy, it's buried in my bedroom somewhere, but for now...no thanks.

I didn't enjoy most of the required reading I had to do in high school. Probably because we had to read so much in such short periods of time and then test on them. Some of the books were Lord of the Flies, The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Glass Menagerie, and Frankenstein. All of those were from my last two years of high school.

Originally Posted by Kibz

Hmm, well, i've liked most books i've learnt at school, even Hobsons Choice! (i forget the Author now xD)
I loved doing Shakespeare, i loved Steinbecks 'Of mice and men', and i loved 'The great Gatsby' by Fitzgerald.

I even loved most of the poetry we were taught, but thats probably because my teacher was into morbid poetry and we ended up doing Edgar Allen Poe :D :D

But there is one i tried to get into and just couldn't, and that was Arthur Millers play - 'Death of a Salesman', which was the first play of College.

I don't know why, i usually like plays, but i think perhaps it's because my mum told me it would be rubbish so i hated it before i even opened the book xD
Maybe i'll try again another time if i ever find the copy, it's buried in my bedroom somewhere, but for now...no thanks.

My English class my junior year, we had to do presentations or recite all the poetry we read.

I personally did not like reading anything Shakespeare. It was required in school and I hated it! =P

The majority of the books that I've read for summer reading I've hated. In the last few years I had to read the Contendor, the Bean Tree, some stinky Native American book, and some unorigional book about a kid stuck on an island. They all sucked.

Typically, the last few days before summer I'll try to read my book, and it is normally a giant struggle to complete. If I DO finish the book, it is normally enough of a struggle that I honestly can't remember most of the details. In my most recent years, I just didn't bother finishing if I hated the book and looked online for a summary. Ironically, I got better grades on the projects based on books I didn't read than the books I did read. XD

Animal Farm made me want to pull out my eyes just so I could get out of reading it. Old Man and the Sea was another one (dull, uneventful, and I thought my teacher's whole thing about how the underlying symbolism was religion was rather far-fetched). Oh, and Great Expectations. I really can't stand Charles Dickens' writing. I tried reading Tale of Two Cities on my own, and it was even worse than GE. His writing is just so boring and...off-topic! My teacher called me the Queen of Flowery Sentences and he was too descriptive (or "flowery") even for me.

Ah, I can't believe people hated Farenheit 451 so much. It was a great book explaining how the world is falling in on itself. How the government wants to keep us "dumb," and have us walking around like mindless zombies. It's a book about taking away the very fabric of books. It has some amazing themes, and some can be found in our present day lives. I guess it was a hard read though. I could see somebody getting frustrated with it. It took me until my college years to really appreciate the book for what it was.

The book I never took a liking it in school was The Pearl. It annoyed me. The plot annoyed me to be exact.

I couldn't stand Lord of the Flies.
And I never even finished Huck Finn. I wrote some blathery paper that said absolutely nothing, but still managed to get a good grade.