As someone who actively chooses to keep analyzing the hunger games after 10 years, that’s wayyyyy too long for a school to focus on it, especially with such shallow assignments. I’m sorry it ruined the experience for you :( but as for me I really disliked Steinbeck and the scarlet letter. I wish I liked them as I enjoyed other classics, but the assignments really make or break a book for me.

Honestly my middle school having me read maximum ride is what bolstered my urge to keep reading for so long. I feel like as we get older, a lot of complex books get added (for good reasons), but introducing people to a variety of books is important to try to foster interest in reading at all.

I have spent a good 10 years of my life re-reading and re-analyzing the hunger games since I read them too young to fully understand them. They appear simple and the movies cheapened it a lot, but there are so many different layers to unpack. It’s a shame so much time was spent on frivolous analysis and also pretty ironic.