I loved Lord of the Flies .Another vote for this. Would become my favourite book.
My youngest son just finished that as assigned by his middle school teacher. He loved it. I didnt read it in school, but I am planning to read through it now because my son wants to talk about it.
Also, apparently it is a series?
animal farm
Can't really think of any immediately, but definitely none of the Orwell novels. Especially Animal Farm. It's not (just) due to political disagreements with Orwell, but the book definitely is taught to HSers with little literary criticism knowledge for a reason. It has almost no nuance and there is nothing to be gained from it beyond the incredibly surface level criticisms of the USSR it makes.Ironic, considering calling those works an "incredibly surface level criticism of the USSR" is itself an incredibly reductionist, surface-level understanding of the works
That said I loved the early sci-fi works we read in my Sci-fi/Fantasy lit class. They were fun reads and it was interesting seeing the origins of a lot of the sci-fi writing tropes.
Ironic, considering calling those works an "incredibly surface level criticism of the USSR" is itself an incredibly reductionist, surface-level understanding of the works
Catcher in the Ryehttps://imgur.com/uh6JVMO#uh6JVMO
Animal Farm is baby's first political satire, if you want to give me an explanation as to why that's not true I'm willing to listen
Well, for one it can't be a criticism of the USSR since Orwell himself was a Democratic Socialist and also because the USSR didn't become totalitarian until after his death (and several years after those books were published).
They are usually considered more alternate history of what would happen if the Nazi's had taken control of all of Europe.
According to Orwell, Animal Farm reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and then on into the Stalinist era of the Soviet Union, a period when Russia lived under the MarxistLeninist ideology of Joseph Stalin.
Did you really like A Separate Peace? Narrator was a brat iirc.That's the point, really. It's about his flaws as much as anything else and the harsh lessons he learns from his own actions.
Catcher in the Rye
The Jungle was really good up until the final chapter became an advertisement
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane. Not sure it was very common as assigned reading, but I had read this in high school and holy shit was it awesome.I had that in one of my college lit classes and yes, it was masterfully written.
GrendelI still have one chapter where I haven't found the Zodiac reference.
Wasn't 'Grendel' actually called Beowulf, or is Grendel a different book entirely?
I still have one chapter where I haven't found the Zodiac reference.
I think it's the Ram, but I'm not even slightly confident in my memory.
Things Fall ApartI'm surprised someone in the topic brought up our boy Okonkwo.
Where the Red Fern GrowsI refuse to recognize that as a children's book.
That book is amazing but literally who assigns a novel that's half a million words long?I had an AP English class in high school that did it.
Besides the ones mentioned already, Frankenstein and Candide.Surprised nobody on page 1 mentioned Frankenstein. I remember for an assignement I drew like a comic adaptation of the part where Victor and the monster reunite for the first time and the monster explains everything that has happened to him