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.
“Jane Eyre”. It was the first classical literature I have ever willingly read (and it’s a separate story of how that happen). Before it I was on “only sci-fi/fantasy/adventure” train. I vehemently denied any notion of classical/old books ability to invoke something in me. I was very young in my head for far too long. I’ve read “Jane Eyre” sitting at work, people were doing their things around me, but I was not there, not with them, I was somewhere else, I was melting by the fire of old language I never knew could be so palpable. In the end “Jane Eyre” did not change my warped perception too much, I did not jump suddenly to read all the classical literature I skipped in school, but it made me a better person. At least I stopped being so damn arrogant about “old ways”.