My English Teacher Made Me Read It!

Hello and happy Monday. This week, I decided not to post a review, because the book I’m currently reading in order to write a review is taking a little bit longer to finish than I planned. Instead, I’ve decided to do something new. I made a list of all of the books I was forced to read in middle/high school, and I’m going to quickly give just my general opinion of said books. I may do another version of this for college, but I haven’t decided yet.

• The Outsiders- When I read it in 7^th grade, I loved this book. I recently reread this one and I found it to be fairly average. It’s not bad, per se, but boring. There’s action, then a lot of nothing, then a little more action, and then the book ends.
• To Kill A Mockingbird- A fantastic book that covers a difficult topic. Everyone should read it at one point in their lives. The attempts to ban this book are ridiculous.
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Like To Kill A Mockingbird, there have been attempts to ban this book for its use of the N-word, or to in the very least censor it to remove the word. Which is a big mistake. It’s a book that should be read, regardless of how uncomfortable the story may make some readers.  
• The Catcher in the Rye- Over-hyped in my opinion. I don’t know anyone older than 17 that seriously connects with this book. It does a great job hitting the pressure points of teen angst, but that’s about it.
• The Scarlet Letter- Hester Prynne deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for not snapping one day and killing everyone in that village for being an asshole.
• King Lear- My favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies, although that’s not saying much.
• A Thousand Acres- A modernized retelling of King Lear where instead of being an actual king, the father is a farmer who owns a large tract of land. For the most part, it does a good job of translating the premise of King Lear but its even more boring than the play. There’s also an added plot element, to explain some of the rifts in the family, that isn’t handled very well and seems contrived.
• The Great Gatsby- I hate this book so much. It’s boring, I don’t understand why it’s considered one of the “great American novels”, and all of the characters are terrible people. Also, anything you have to say about symbolism usually begins and ends with talking about the stupid billboard with the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg.
• The Odyssey- For a book of this length, and as old as the story is, it’s not half bad. It drags in places and gets formulaic, but it at least kept me mostly entertained.
• Beowulf- I really don’t know how I feel about this one. The story itself is pretty simple, and who doesn’t enjoy a story about killing random monsters.
• The Canterbury Tales- I only read parts of this book, but I’m including it. Shakespeare’s hard enough to understand as a high schooler. Chaucer is pretty much impossible. Also, most of the stories are pretty boring.
• Oedipus Rex- Given how Oedipus in known today mostly because of Freud’s nonsense about the Oedipus complex (and I could write an entire novel explaining how screwed up his reasoning there is), I was surprised that I actually felt bad for Oedipus. His story is tragic and for once, the ending of a tragedy makes sense to me. Also, this just goes to show that no one should ever trust an oracle.
• The Poisonwood Bible- This is the most boring book I’ve ever read. Every time I read it, I started to fall asleep. It takes forever for the story to get started, and once it does, I quickly became apathetic. I don’t care about missionaries being sad that they can’t convert people to their religion. Maybe showing up and telling people their belief system is wrong isn’t a smart move.
• Romeo and Juliet- I feel like I don’t have anything to say here that hasn’t already been said. It’s a tragedy because they’re young and dumb and their families both suck. I wish people would stop seeing their relationship as romantic, because that’s just…yikes.

So, there you have it. All of the book I remember being forced to read in English class. I’m sure there are some I’ve just forgotten (or repressed). I can see why these books are required reading in some cases. They’re useful for teaching certain literary concepts and studying things such as themes and figurative language. Just because they’re easy to teach, that doesn’t mean they’re good books, or interesting. As you could plainly see, I thought most of them were boring. Of all of the books I’ve mentioned, I don’t think there are any I would’ve chosen to read on my own.

What were some books you were forced to read and hated? Do you have any opinions on the books mentioned above?