Required Reading

[Amber]

I'm positive that everyone had to do this at one point (or, well, several points) in high school- read a certain book for a specific class.

I read Alice in Wonderland last year for Reading, The Giver for Enlgish this year, and now we're reading My Brother Sam is Dead (Oh my god, boooring and the title gives a major event away...) for English.

Some books that are required I enjoy, and others I don't. How about you guys? What books have you read/are you reading, which did you enjoy, and which didn't you?

[Bre]

I pretty much dislike any book I'm forced to read. It's just my stubborn way. The only book I really enjoyed during school and after that was required was Of Mice and Men. Everything else was pretty boring.

[Lizzie]

We read a bit of Shakespeare at school, which was good. I did a class last year on popular culture and read a lot of books which I probably wouldn't have previously - Lord of the Rings - Fellowship and Tarzan among a few others. They were okay, LOTR was better than I expected.

[Deleted]

I enjoy reading, so if it's a good, quality book I'll enjoy it, whether I'm forced to read it or not. I remember being required to read "Pride and Prejudice" for my English lit. class in high school, but I'd already read it, so it wasn't a big deal to me. I don't really remember a book I was required to read that I didn't like, but some books that are repeated among grades or classes that I have to read year after year can get a little old.

[Alissa]

Let's see...
"To Kill a Mockingbird" in 8th grade-- I actually liked that one, we just overanalyzed it.
"The Ramayana", "The Iliad", "The Odyssey", "Gilgamesh", "Beowulf", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", and "Hamlet"-- I pretty much liked these... Although honestly, I didn't read all of them. I read most of Ramayana, Iliad, and Beowulf, and all of the plays, but I got lazy and sick of the odyssey and beowulf.

This year: "The Scarlet Letter"-- HATED it. Adultery=
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"-- It was all right. Didn't care for the last few chapters, though.
"The Things They Carried"-- LOVED it.
"Long Day's Journey into Night"-- It was interesting. It was a psychological play, so that was kinda cool, but it was mostly autobiographical of Eugene O'Neill so it was sad.

Oh dear I'm so ready for summer I don't remember anything else I've had to read.

[buffymanic]

The only books I enjoyed reading at school were plays. Romeo and Juliet, Mesure for Mesure and Death of a Salesman

I hated Lord of the Flies and I can't remember the other one but it was about a guy that stalker this other guy because he had some psychological disease that made him think the 'love' was reciprical even though they'd only talked once. A real page turner that one!

[Mooshi]

I highly recommend the novel 'Twilight' by Stephenie Meyer. It's such a good book. If you like vampires and dark romance then you should definitely check it out. It's really weird because it's been out for a few years and it's just now getting really popular. I'm sure a few of the KAX members have read this book before. Here's a summary i found online for the novel.

www.vampiregenre.com/2006/02/12/stephenie-meyer-twilight/

[Casi]

I really liked all quiet on the western front and of mice an men, both of which were required. I also enjoyed reading A Piece of my heart in college. That one is a play about nurses during Vietnam and it was really touching and avant guarde. Oh, and house on mango street.

Other than that...I dunno...most of the books were below my reading level when they were assigned. Downfall to reading early I guess.

[Amber]

paige said:

I highly recommend the novel 'Twilight' by Stephenie Meyer. It's such a good book. If you like vampires and dark romance then you should definitely check it out. It's really weird because it's been out for a few years and it's just now getting really popular. I'm sure a few of the KAX members have read this book before. Here's a summary i found online for the novel.

www.vampiregenre.com/2006/02/12/stephenie-meyer-twilight/

I read it before it ever became popular and yes, it's quite amazing. But this isn't the thread for recommending books.

I just saw the list of plays most of you have/had to read. I know some of Shakespeare's plays I have to read when I get into the higher grades, but I'm not sure about books. I heard that I was supposed to be reading Bridge to Terabithia or something last year, but we never did.

[Mooshi]

lol ahhhh. I guess i should have read a few of the other posts before i posted.

As a Junior this year, i had to read The Great Gatsby. It wasn't what i was used to reading, but it was pretty good. I also had to read The Crucible, and i really liked that one. I think we were supposed to read Huckleberry Finn, but we never got to it.

[Alissa]

I was a junior this year and we also read "The Great Gatsby", "The Crucible" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Heehee imagine that. Huck Finn is really good, but the end is kinda wacky.

You know what else is wacky? Laura. I'm so sorry about her.

[Deleted]

Hmmm, I had to read catcher in the rye in 5th form, mostly we all just thought it was weird with the whole voyer thing. I like lord of the flies (William Golding), most of my class didn't. Mmmm, other than that pretty much hated what I was made to read.

[Deleted]

I remember having to read "Gulliver's Travels" in English Lit and it was a lot more enjoyable than I'd at first thought it would be. I had always viewed it as a kids' tale even though I could remember very little about it, since we'd had the movie around when I was a kid, but it's really quite good.

[Amber]

There was one time in sixth grade that we got a choice (limited selection, of course ) of what we had to read...I still hated it.

[Allan]

I've basically hated everything that I was told to read when I was at school on the principle of the matter - I want to read what I want to read!

[shred]

I read lame books during secondary school. So lame I can't remember what the titles of the books were.

Why can't school get us to Buffy books or something. That would be cool!

[Bre]

We had this program called "Accelerated Reading" (AR) and each book was a certain amount of points, and you had to get like 50 points a semester. To get points you had to read the book and take a quiz on the computer and if you got below a 75% you got no points. It was stupid as hell. So I just "re-read" the Harry Potter books and took the quizzes for that because they were like 20 points because they were big books.

I hated that though. It stunted my desire to read for a while when it was supposed to accelerate the desire. Stupid.

[Lizzie]

batmite79 said:

I've basically hated everything that I was told to read when I was at school on the principle of the matter - I want to read what I want to read!

Honestly, if I'd thought that I would have missed out on some really fantastic books!