What Book In School Did You Have To Read, But You Hated?

[grinningghost]

The Iliad, The Odyssey, Julius Caeser - yawn

 

[vald1977]

The Scarlet Letter was the one I hated the most. There was another about a meat-packing plant that I hated too. Can't even remember the name of it now. The Hobbit didn't interest me either.

The only book I was forced to read that I loved was To Kill A Mockingbird. I started reading it one morning because we were supposed to read the first chapter and didn't put it down until I was finished.

 

[ryanpatricksmom]

Vald,
The meat-packing plant novel would be The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, I believe. And I agree, not something that I enjoyed!

 

[swanmom]

Did anyone have to read "Giants in the Earth" by O.E. Rolvaag?
I have never encountered anything so brain-numbingly boring in my life. It's the story of a prairie family's attempts to survive but I could tell you the whole plot in a couple of sentences.
Here goes:
There's a drought, the plants die, the winter comes, somebody starves, the cows die, the plants come back in the spring, the locusts come, the plants die, the winter comes, people get sick and die, the duststorms come, the new plants die...........get the picture. Over 400 pages of this, I wanted to shoot myself by the fifth chapter!

 

[WDW Poly Princess]

I ended up having to read all of The Fountainhead in one weekend, as I have a tendency to procrastinate, and while I didnt hate the book, that was TORTURE! (Its about eight billion pages long)

I love some of the books y'all have listed- LOTR, Gatsby, and Shakespeare (well, Julias Ceasar was a bit boring, but I think I just had a bad teacher for that one)

 

[TiggerPiglet]

Shane, it was such a boy's book, meanwhile I went to an all girls' school. I could never figure out why they wanted us to read that.

 

[Melrosgirl]

My Antonia by Willa Cather.

I had to read it over the summer of 8th grade to 9th grade for an advanced reading class to start in the fall. It was a long book and I recall calling my best friend each week to see where in the book she was at.

ahhh, memories! I bet if I read it now, I'd love it, but it was the dreaded book for the summer of 1986.

 

[BrerMom]

I like so many of the books that are listed here.

Mine was David Copperfield. I like other Dicken's novels, but this one was just too drawn out for me. It was the only book ever assigned to me that I didn't finish. I even tried to read it and watch the movie as an adult. I wasn't successful with either.

 

[gemmie214]

I also love to read but I really disliked "The Old Man and The Sea"...I just hated that book. After you go through the whole boring story sharks eat the fish! Couldn't he have just gotten to keep the darn fish??? It does say SOMETHING about the book if I remember every detail after all these years

 

[Disney845]

I LOVE some of the books some of you guys hated!!!

For me I did not enjoy reading "Heart of Darkness." Don't think I appreciated it at the time, but in college I had to read "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz" and it brougt back memories from the book and I now realize that if I read it today I might like it, I just didn't enjoy reading it then and having to analyze every little freaking thing....who cares what the rivots symbolized????

 

[Boo'sMom]

Dante's Inferno

 

[Cindy B]

Animal Farm/1984-- that was in the 6th grade.

Lets see, Red Badge of Courage was pretty bad.


I remember reading Equus in college. That is the most bizarre thing I ever read in my life.



Usually, I love assigned reading and read the entire book in the first weekend assigned.

I loved Brothers Karazamov, and Crime and Punishment, and Fathers and Sons. (there was a Russian literature unit and I LOVED IT!0

 

[tater bug]

Another vote for The Pearl. It was horrible!

In 5th grade I voluntarily read David Copperfield and The Hobbit. In 6th grade it was Gone With the Wind.

Growing up, reading was an escape from the everyday. Sadly, there isn't much time in my life these days to read on a regular basis. But the summer is coming up and I'm hoping to read and read and read and....

 

[mrsv98]

Black Boy by Richard Wright

Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence...all I wanted to do was tell the characters to GET A LIFE!

 

[CruiserDew73]

I absolutely hated The Call of the Wild. Thatwas the most boring drawn out book i ever read!

 

[jamsmom]

I don't care for Shakespeare and I didn't care for The Pearl, either. (Yes, I know it shoud be italicized)

BUT...

In 7th grade, we read Cheaper by the Dozen and I liked that one. Did anyone else ever read that one?


Actually I hated anything that we had to search for symbolism in...if the author wanted a tree to mean something he/she should have stated that in the beginning. I think they teach symbolism and for the rest of our lives, we look for hidden meaning in everything.

 

[Diane]

I love to read almost anything, but hated Catcher in the Rye and The Odyssey.

 

[jeffemy]

I despised Lord of the Flies. My 15 yr old DS is currently forcing himself to get through what he refers to as a 19th century soap opera- Pride and Prejudice!

 

[nsyncraider17]

The Old Man and the Sea!!! That is absolutely the most pointless book ever!

Wuthering Heights...it really would have been ok if it ended about halfway through, but the book is basically the same story repeating itself through like 3 generations. it dragged on way too much for me.

The Call of the Wild...just really boring.

The Hobbit...this really bored me and I didn't understand a lot of it. Ironically, I read Lord of the Rings over about 4 weekends in january and february and LOVED it!

Walden by Thoreau...shouldn't teachers be encouraging us to think for ourselves instead of making us read an entire book of someone else's?

A Tale of Two Cities...I guess I didn't hate it, but I read it less than a year ago and don't actually remember reading it at all. So I must not have liked it very much.

Moby Dick...um, yeah. I haven't actually read this one yet. I was supposed to be done with it about a month ago, but I got bored after the first page. I have to read the sparknotes over spring break and write an essay...blah.


There are some books I've had to read that I like though: Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Scarlet Letter...and I loved a book we read in 7th grade called The King's Shadow. The books that have an actual story are usually ok, but I can't stand the ones that are just observations on everything imaginable!

 

[Kallison]

Ivanhoe in 6th grade. That is really the only book I HATED. I used to voluntarily do book reports for my friends, their boyfriends etc. When I was in 8th grade I did a book report for an 11th grade boy that my best friend had a crush on and he got a A- on it.