What book were you assigned to read in school that you disliked the most?

I confess I can't remember any of the assigned books we read that I liked because there were many. The book I disliked the most was My Antonia by Willa Cather. I think I had to read it in 9th grade and found it very boring. I was already into the Russian writers on my own by then. Also my English teacher that year was not very dynamic. To this day, I have never read anything else by Willa Cather. Sadly, I probably don't have the patience for the Russian writers anymore.

The Castle of Otronto and The Scarlet Letter. Neither of these books improved on rereading when I was an adult. I wasn't too high on Great Expectations at age 13, either, but I gradually forgave Dickens his sentimentality and learned to enjoy him in middle and old age.

I don't remember most of the assigned books because they were so boring but these were the worst:
The Red Badge of Courage (8th or 9th grade)
Great Expectations (9th grade)
The Mill on the Floss (9th grade) = instant sleep inducing
The Scarlet Letter (9th grade and again in 11th grade), only slightly better the second time
Moby Dick (11th grade)
Eleventh grade did improve with two Shakespeare plays.

>3 Taphophile13: I'm with you Taphophile! Worst:

The Red Badge of Courage
Moby Dick

A Passage to India (year 11/12, Brisbane, Australia). Read the first third, thought "I don't want to know any more", and haven't read anything else by Forster (except The Machine Stops) to this day, 50+ years later.

Silas Marner I have loved some of her other work but this one was torture for a ninth grader.

There might be a way to successfully introduce these books to adolescents. But slow reading and tearing to bits with analysis seem not a good method. If I were a literature teacher, I would introduce my favorite classics and explain what their delights are, offering samples and using those to teach what one might look for in books. But then STOP! Move on. If you don’t torture the kids at length, some will continue to explore good books and appreciate them better.

>6 perennialreader:. Same. Silas Marner

>7 2wonderY: Yes! My son had a great lit teacher in high school. She would give them the book and the "big question" for each. For Brave New World the big question was: Is this a Utopian or dystopian world? Kids had to decide how they measured a dystopian or utopian--by human happiness, self-directedness, social stability, etc.

Also, the kids were expected to read the books in their entirety before discussing them. None of these quizzes over the assigned chapters day by day. Ugh.

I always left some wiggle room when I taught college lit so that students could spend an extra day or two on an author or work they really liked. Perennial favorites in Am Lit: Poe, Whitman, and the Declaration of Independence.

No question - Lord of the Flies

>5 haydninvienna: I echo your post. Exactly.

>10 lilithcat: Lord of the Flies has since become a favorite of mine as has Silas Marner. Just amazing how our lessons turned us off of good books.

>6 perennialreader: Ah yes, I had forgotten that one. Silas Marner was equally awful.

I often thought that the books on our assigned reading list were not examples of universal truths, good storytelling or superior writing but simply a matter of it's out of copyright.

I still don't like Moby-Dick and My Antonia.

I'll also go with The Scarlett Letter, as I can really recall being bored to death with it. I can appreciate that it stays on reader lists, but without good discussion or drawing some kind of parallels between the mores and what passes for scandal in our respective times, I'm betting it bores young people to this day.

Wow, I absolutely loved Silas Marner and The Scarlet Letter!

>13 Crypto-Willobie: True. I didn't really hate Moby Dick but would have no reason to re-read it.

I didn't like Moby Dick when we read it in high school, but I loved it when I re-read it a few years later. What can I say? Bad teacher.

>18 Crypto-Willobie:
Moby-Dick needs a good editor. If you could omit about 40% of it it would be a much better book.

>18 Crypto-Willobie: I own Moby-Dick and have yet to read it. Now I'm really hesitant! There's a fine line between getting good plot details and dragging things out.

Hmm... 🤔

>18 Crypto-Willobie:

If you could omit about 40% of it it would be a much better book.

I think that's why I disliked it in high school. We were towards the end of the term, so the teacher said, "Skip the whaling chapters." Wrong! It needs them.

>19 terriks: Read Moby Dick and tell us what you think.

>17 lilithcat: My experience exactly.

We read Frankenstein. How Shelly could have taken such a wonderful theme and made such an awful book is beyond me.

If she didn't have a famous husband I don't think it would ever have been published.

>22 Novak: I never had to read Frankenstein, but my daughter had to in middle school and I read it along with her. I could have written it better!

>23 2wonderY: Just think of all the successful films and adaptations of that book over all these years. The idea was brilliant, still a lot of mileage in it now.

Just imagine if Bram Stoker or Mark Twain had got hold of it before she did.

Agreed.

>23 2wonderY:
>24 Novak:

Oh, I loved Frankenstein by Shelly

>24 Novak:

Just think of all the successful films and adaptations of that book over all these years

2018 was the 200th anniversary of the publication, and in Chicago alone different theater companies produced plays adapted from it. They were all completely different and all wonderful. I think that says a lot about how rich the book is.

>27 lilithcat: They were all completely different and all wonderful. I think that says a lot about how rich the book is.

It certainly says a lot about how rich the idea is.

ETA: Great thread, BTW :)

>7 2wonderY: That would be ideal, except that many teachers are bound by the adopted curriculum and state standards, at least in the United States.

Definitely The Red Badge of Courage but when I re-read it years later, I liked it.

Hounds Of Baskerville

Without a doubt - The Scarlet Letter. Our family moved a lot and as luck would have it for three years running I changed high schools each year and every year the book to be reviewed in English class was that awful novel. The only character I had any sympathy for was Chillingworth and every time we had to pick a character to defend he was my choice...to a woman the teachers were none too pleased with my selection. :-)

We were supposed to read Red Badge of Courage, but I didn't and don't recall any negative consequences. Did I copy from someone?

Our reading for book reports was pretty much free choice. But some of the stuff in the literature texts was not interesting to me. And Hawthorne was not to my taste at all.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I still don't know why my 10th grade English teacher thought that was a good choice...

The Pearl by John Steinbeck...I was so annoyed by that book. But I was young then. I wonder how I'd receive it on a reread. Other than that, I mostly enjoyed most of the books assigned in school.

>36 lethalmauve: Im sure you would have much prefered The Pearl by Anonymous

I remember despising Cry, the Beloved Country, not so much because of the story, but because of the punctuation! The em dashes instead of quotation marks drove me crazy.

The Grapes of Wrath was depressing. Truman Capote is a groaner. Of course, that lovely Calculus book...

Lord Jim. I could **not** get through it and tried to fake my way through the test. (Unsuccessfully, I might add.)

Read it a few years ago, and enjoyed it. Go figure.

Silas Marner, now, and The Mill on the Floss were absolute torture and I have no desire to revisit them just to see if they've improved. (Couldn't possibly have anything to do with the reader growing up....)

>40 LyndaInOregon: One man's trash............Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss are probably 2 of my fav reads. I love everything I've read by George Eliot. However, I'm with you on Lord Jim, or anything by Conrad.

I never took to Thomas Hardy. Talk about depression and misery!
Tess of the D'Urbervilles is the only book I ever threw against a wall in frustration and rage at the ending.Poor Tess's life was ruined but everyone else seems to just go on quite happily. The scene of Angel and Tess's sister walking off hand in hand enrages me even after many decades.I do NOT see Hardy as some great feminist supporter as modern readers tend to do.
Anyway,let me go off and wash up.That will be dull enough to soothe my annoyance perhaps. :0)

>42 dustydigger: You may not have "taken" to Hardy, but he did produce a strong reaction....perhaps that was the point? But then, I am a Hardy fan.