it doesn’t have to be your favorite book or anything. It can be any book that you find yourself thinking of with a sense of pride for having read it.
Personally, I am really proud of myself for not DNFing A Little Life and pushing forward. I read a very good chunk of that book with tears running down my face–mind you, I was reading it on my phone during lectures for the entirety of my first semester last year–and I was always on the verge of putting it down just because of the horrible content. Also, it was pretty long; too long, actually. So when I was done, I was simultaneously Heartbroken, broken (just like in general), and relieved. It was truly a feat.
An honorable mention is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, because I swear to God I did not understand a single thing about it even 10 chapters in. Charles Dickens is too much.
„A little life“ is even more awful because it‘s readable and it sucks you in so completely. I also read in just a few days. I‘m don‘t really count it as accomplishment because it‘s very difficult to put it away in my experience and since finishing it I grew much more critical of the book. So not sure. In terms of length Paul Austers „1,2,3,4“ I‘d probably count as an accomplishment because I read it in like a week and I think it‘s about a 1000 pages. I think one I‘d call accomplishment is finishing Will Self‘s „Dorian“ in English because of the unusual language.