Worst book you had to read in school

[superstrike66]

Fahrenheit 451, The plot of this book is extremely dumb. It's just a radical boomer take on the future. The ending sucks ass too.

Yes. I actually enjoyed the first half to 451, but I felt that the second half was rushed, and it ended way too suddenly. I also had the misfortune of reading Ben Franklin's autobiography, which almost made me commit arson to get rid of the damn book. Ben was a fascinating person, but reading a book written in the 18th century for class should be considered child abuse.

For the best book I read for a class (and my favorite book overall), it has to be The Kite Runner. It has an incredible, emotional story with fantastic characters, and the ending was one of the few times I cried in any form of media.

 

[Bughouse]

In the first few pages of Jane Eyre, someone throws a book at Jane and this is what happens next



Even in 10th grade I had read fanfiction with less blatant “let’s establish how our protagonist is super awesome and smart” lines


edit: for some positivity, some books I remember liking from school: Catch 22, The Kite Runner, The Stranger, Pride and Prejudice, Heart of Darkness

only book I had for school that I genuinely just couldn’t tolerate reading and had to sparknotes and pray.

The Hobbit

Also abysmal but at least a lot shorter.

 

[Rabia]

boring take inbound but romeo and juliet is just not very good

 

[Adeleine]

I also remember seeing some weird film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet involving guns and stuff.

lol that was sick, i remember it being like a gang thing

 

[Ununhexium]

Yeah it had leonardo dicaprio too

 

[Mr. Uncompetitive]

I kinda liked Catcher in the Rye tbh...

In my senior year of high school, The Fountainhead. It was long af and kinda annoying in its symbolism (second-hander gang). Of Mice and Men in junior year was pretty bad too.

On a lighter note, by far the best book I read for school was A Clockwork Orange in that same senior year class, and we got to see the movie in class too LOL. We had to get permission slips to watch it, but we were all pretty impressed by how fucked up it was ("it's just an R-rated movie, how bad could it be?")

 

[Oglemi]

Crime and Punishment was definitely the biggest snoozer for me. Wasn't required reading but on the list of titles that you had to choose from to read. Big mistake on my part lol.

And it's not even that the overall story and stuff is bad it just fucking draaaaags

 

[phoopes]

I read Grapes of Wrath in high school and thought it sucked. I read it ten years later and it was pretty good (though not as good as Of Mice and Men or East of Eden).

In high school Grapes of Wrath was the only book that I just couldn't finish and used Sparknotes for. Soooo dry. Glad to hear you liked it better when you were older, maybe I'll give it a shot again someday.

 

[earl]

I also lowkey like catcher in the rye

A tale of two cities in 9th grade fucking hurt to read. Like goddamn

 

[theotherguytm]

Non-ironically the biggest problem with all these books is English as a subject. And the problem with English as a subject is the way it's taught and examined. You aren't actually examined on your understanding of the book, you're tested on your ability to pick quotes out of a book to suit an argument that is pre-set for you, and write out an explanation of why that quote is appropriate in a formulaic manner.

The teachers then are told to teach you to pass the exam, rather than actually trying to make you engage with the book and think about it independently. The result is a boring as hell subject even for the most devoted book-reader like me. (Heck, I even attended Creative Writing Club, and I still hated English).

I learnt more about Of Mice And Men from 2 hours of discussion with my dad than I did from my teacher in 3 double lessons a week for 2 years. If anyone here who did Of Mice And Men can actually tell me what it is about and the actual message behind it, they win 20 likes. Bonus 10 likes if it's an equally valid and thorough interpretation that's different to mine. (Hint, it has nothing to do with the Fing colour of her Fing boots or racism, whatever your English teacher would try and make you believe.)

 

[zorbees]

i think the last time i actually read a book for school was 6th grade, i fucking hated that shit

 

[az]

imagine if his name really was don quixtoe though

that's a very different story

 

[VelocityV2]

catcher in the rye I really disliked until my teacher went over the symbolism. Scarlet letter was straight up horrible though lol.

 

[VelocityV2]

The worst book I had to read was 1984, it was not that good, and kind of boring.

 

[VelocityV2]

i think the last time i actually read a book for school was 6th grade, i fucking hated that shit

I think reading books that pertain to your interests is way better. Reading books like Percy Jackson was awesome to me because I loved fantasy books.

 

[Aquarius Ghost ❤]

The worst book I ever had to read was Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet. That stuff was so confusing!!!

 

[superstrike66]

While Shakespeare is confusing, you guys gotta admit that there are many great for insults to throw at people in his stories.

 

[LordThemberchaud]

While Shakespeare is confusing, you guys gotta admit that there are many great for insults to throw at people in his stories.

I have a poster that has various Shakespeare insults. My favorite is rather direct:
"I think, thou art an ass."

 

[Ironmage]

While Shakespeare is confusing, you guys gotta admit that there are many great for insults to throw at people in his stories.

If you want more of that, check out Timon of Athens. Gets skipped over in class because it's harder to force meaning into, but it's like 80% solid Elizabethan roasts.

 

[pokemon4eva]

Esio Trot, a book about one creep boomer which steals a lady's tortoise pet and swaps it with bigger tortoises to manipulate her that he's making him bigger, then fell in love and marry him. Oh and the tortoises are given away once the deed is done, including the original pet.

 

[Lucario]

There was this one in my Spanish class that we called El Toro but it had an actual title that nobody knew about. We had to read 20 parts of it and translate it in a week and do a test. It had the worst plot ever, like I would rather watch a Hallmark Christmas movie. There were these 4 random characters going around Spain and finding fake money and notes about "el toro" (the bull) and it ended up being the biggest let down after seeing El Toro was a hotel clerk that had 2 lines.

 

[Aqua Jet]

The worst book I've ever had to "read" in school was probably Fahrenheit 451. I put read in quotes because I say I've read it but what I really did was just look up a chapter summary for each chapter.

 

[teal6]

i can understand how a work is important or influential and still think it’s boring as fuck lol

plenty are, too. half of the "great" french novels are almost unreadable. i don't need victor hugo describing a blade of grass for six paragraphs

 

[CaffeineBoost]

The grade 10 main book in English class was Lord of the Flies. One of the points has a character's glasses being used to focus light to start a fire. Said character was confirmed as nearsighted, meaning their glasses could not do that. By sheer coincidence, grade 10 was when optics were notably covered in the general Science course. It was the one time I could point out how the entire plot fails because of some minor physics knowledge, and have a room full of people go "now that you mention that, you're right."

I was gonna mention Lord of the Flies, but it's because I actually think it's a shite book.

Edit: I think LotF may be the only bad book I've had to read for English classes. Shakespeare tends to be pretty good, War of the Worlds was okay ig, Jekyll & Hyde was p. good.

There was a dumb book I had to read which was about Midsummer Night's Dream but not actually Midsummer Night's Dream. Some kid playing Puck is teleported to the 1590's. That was shite. Can't remember the name of it.

 

[rien]

the bible