Literally any book that you now dislike due to school. This also applies to other literature styles as well.
Mine is The Hunger Games. I had to read it las year in school and it drove me insane. We started doing the novel study in early February and didn’t finish until May. I finished the book in less than two weeks, so I was pretty much just reading personal books all through English class for close to two months.
It’s not even like we had to analyze it super intensely. It was projects like ‘Make a playlist for a character of your choice’ and we had vocabulary tests every week, that were a joke. It was multiple choice for words like quest and forage. I know that English wasn’t everyone’s first language but come on.
I didn’t even like the book that much in the first place, so all of this was just adding to the misery.
Freakishly old person here. Eventually you get over the school taint in books. I’ve reread several, if not all the books we read in HS a hundred years ago, and like them all-Fahrenheit 451, 1984, On the Cay, Flowers for Algernon, even Shakespeare once I saw great film adaptations.
Except Red Badge of Courage. I still don’t like that one.
I agree, however seems like you were lucky with your prescribed books to begin with. Those are actually good books. However…the Hunger Games… in language studies? I’d understand being put off reading in general if I was forced to over-analyze that.
Theres so many excellent shakespeare adaptations. Kurosawa alone made 3 that are worth watching
I enjoyed F451 when we read it for class
Lord of the flies on the other hand… teacher had a bit of an agenda to the point of changing parts of the book for test questions. Got called out on it with page numbers and everything, but still refused to back down. Lady was crazy
F451 was middle school book fair choice of mine and my intruding to science fiction, and it had me hooked from the start. By 11th grade, I had read everything the school libraries had by Bradbury, Asimov, and Clarke.
On the Cay! I was trying to recall the name of this book recently and it just would NOT come to me. I want to try it out again.
Red Badge of Courage leapt to mind when I saw this!
Lol “Freakishly old” would be 200+
That’s a great book
Farenheit 451 was one I remember enjoying in school. Flowers for Algernon is one of the saddest books I’ve ever read. And I’ve read some fucked up books.
Kind of a hot take on Red Badge of Courage, but I think feeling a certain level of disdain for it is the intended reaction.
That’s not really a hot take, the book is supposed to make you feel disgusted
I had to know Red Badge front to back for Academic Decathlon in high school. Seeing it makes me want to grab matches.
“It was a pleasure to burn.”