# Books you had read in high school that you absolutely hated **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [September 4, 2025, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732 "2025-09-04T01:34:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/1 "2025-09-04T01:34:55Z")
There were many books and novellas we had to read that I hated so much I never read any more titles by the author. The Pearl, by John Steinbeck Great Expectations by Charles Dickens Fahrenheit 451 I will think of more, but what about you? I may start another thread later about books I thought I’d hate but ended up loving. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/2 "2025-09-04T01:44:29Z")
I was an avid reader and so consumed most of the required reading without complaint. And most of the books we were assigned were ‘classics’ of whatever stripe for a reason and held up. But I remember absolutely hating John Knowles, _A Separate Peace_ in high school freshman year. I don’t remember specifically what I hated aside from it being very dull and uninteresting but I clearly remember loathing every moment we spent on that book. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/3 "2025-09-04T01:48:17Z")
A social studies class where we read The Painted Bird, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Going Crazy by Otto Friedrich\*, which I liked. But also included was **Stranger in a Strange Land** , which I didn’t like. \*a 1976 book where the author relates how, as an emotionally vulnerable Harvard undergrad, he volunteered for a psychological experiment where he was verbally abused by Harvard Law upperclassmen. Years later it was made known that Ted Kazinski was another volunteer, and the study’s sponsor had been the CIA. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/4 "2025-09-04T01:54:38Z")
Steinbeck, I hated because it was so depressing, but I could at least recognize that there was some real skill there. I don’t remember exactly which ones we read by him, but at least Of Mice and Men and The Pearl. Hemmingway, I think we read The Sun Also Rises, and absolutely nothing happens in that entire book. It’s not that the plot is bad; there just isn’t any plot at all. And finally, The Lord of the Flies. Humans just don’t behave that way. The natural state of humans is to live in a society, and so cut off from other society, we’ll form one of our own. We don’t just descend into anarchic savagery. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/5 "2025-09-04T02:07:04Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > John Knowles, _A Separate Peace_ As Rutger Bregman notes in his book Humankind, the real life analogue to Lord of the Flies saw a group of kids survive on their own on an island for nearly a year and they did just fine. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/6 "2025-09-04T02:30:16Z")
There was a book, all I can recall about it is that it had “Owl” in the title and was so boring for me I found it unreadable. And demonstrably, completely unmemorable save for not liking it. ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/7 "2025-09-04T02:45:55Z")
The Catcher in the Rye. Terrible book. The main character was such a phony. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/8 "2025-09-04T02:49:34Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > But I remember absolutely hating John Knowles, _A Separate Peace_ in high school freshman year. Yep, that’s the first book that sprung to my mind when I read the thread title. (runs off to read the plot summary). Yeah, that’s what I remember. A pretty dull story told in a pretty dull fashion. ---
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/9 "2025-09-04T03:12:46Z")
The one book I hated in school was the Old Man and the Sea. Sure, it was short, but I couldn’t even finish it. Absolutely dreadful. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/10 "2025-09-04T03:26:58Z")
_My Name is Asher Lev_ by Chaim Potok. It’s about a Hasidic Jewish man named (spoiler alert) Asher Lev. Asher is a talented artist, but his community, and his father especially, doesn’t value art since it’s not related to anything of religious importance. As an adult, Lev paints something that offends his community and he’s asked to leave. It’s one of the few books in high school I hated reading. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/11 "2025-09-04T03:40:23Z")
I actually liked, or at least could tolerate, most of the books we read in high school. The only exception was _Wuthering Heights,_ which I did not like at all. In addition to finding it confusing, I also found that it was boring, and it tended to put me to sleep. ---
**Author:** ![JohnGalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johngalt/32/184_2.png) [@JohnGalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnGalt)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/12 "2025-09-04T03:43:14Z")
**The Scarlet Letter**. I started it late, couldn’t get in the mood to finish it after a couple of pages, hated the setting. It was the only time I read the summary in an encyclopedia at the school library to write my book report (I got an A). ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/13 "2025-09-04T03:46:23Z")
Pretty much every book I read in high school was tedious and gave little value. _Cat’s Cradle, Paradise Lost,_ etc. IMHO, a lot of the value of the “classics” is circular logic: they’re considered to be classics because they’re considered to be classics. If someone published them today rather than 100 or 800 years ago, they’d not have much value. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/14 "2025-09-04T04:22:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Hemmingway, I think we read The Sun Also Rises, and absolutely nothing happens in that entire book. That’s the one that almost put me off Hemingway for life. Luckily, I dipped my toe back in, in college, and gladly read the rest of his oruvre. The reading I really hated in High School English were plays (especially Shakespeare) that by definition, are meant to be seen, not read.. ---
**Author:** ![Dancer\_Flight](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dancer_flight/32/7601_2.png) [@Dancer\_Flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dancer_Flight)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/15 "2025-09-04T04:43:44Z")
_Tess of the D’Urbervilles_ was the only assigned work in high school that I didn’t finish and I relied on the Cole’s notes to flail through any assignments based on it. _The Sun Also Rises_ was readable, but also put me off Hemmingway for life. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/16 "2025-09-04T04:48:48Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > But I remember absolutely hating John Knowles, _A Separate Peace_ in high school freshman year. I don’t remember specifically what I hated aside from it being very dull and uninteresting but I clearly remember loathing every moment we spent on that book. Ditto this. It was crap writing with a crap plotline and was nothing but a big waste of time. We could have been reading _Slaughterhouse-Five_ but they forced that drek on us, I never found out why. It was about high school students, but the characters were repulsive and I could not relate to their situation. I later found _Slaughterhouse-Five_ and read it on my own! ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/17 "2025-09-04T04:50:52Z")
I liked or got something out of every novel I was assigned from middle school through graduate school with the exception of Edith Wharton’s _The House of Mirth._ This includes many of the books already mentioned in this thread and, I presume, many others still to be named below. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/18 "2025-09-04T06:20:59Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The Lord of the Flies. Humans just don’t behave that way. The natural state of humans is to live in a society, and so cut off from other society, we’ll form one of our own. We don’t just descend into anarchic savagery. It wasn’t anarchic savagery, it was savagery directed by an oligarchy led by a sociopath, presented in opposition to a society of peace and relative liberty. Small groups may not behave precisely that way, but the book was most decidedly an allegory for the wider world and the nuclear war that had happened at the beginning of the book. I didn’t like the book, but I understood it for what it was (and was suitably depressed afterwards). I read A Separate Peace on my own, I think. I didn’t hate it but I also didn’t understand what the author was trying to get at. I read it as a closeted gay teen, and I kept thinking there was going to be an actual gay subtext somewhere instead of what I hopefully supplied for myself. There were two required books in high school that I hated. One was Ethan Frome. I hated it because it was unrelentingly sour, and the two protagonists were so, well, lame. The other was The Old Man and the Sea, which is another Hemingway book apparently designed to turn you off from Hemingway for life. Although nothing happens in it, it does have the virtue of being relatively short. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/19 "2025-09-04T07:14:00Z")
I despised _The Scarlet Letter_and still do. Steinbeck’s _The Pearl_” does nothing for me, which saddens me because I quite like Steinbeck. I thoroughly enjoyed _Great Expectations_. And I think _Fahrenheit 451_ is great. Initially I thought my dislike of _The Scarlet Letter_ was because of how badly it was taught when I had to read it in high school. Every time I decide to give it another go, I’m gobsmacked at just how strikingly _bad_ and forced it is. He seemed to me to be more in love with his personal view of how great he was with language than with crafting a story. So, of course, I did not find his story to be crafted well nor did I find him great with language. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732/20 "2025-09-04T09:04:43Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > There was a book, all I can recall about it is that it had “Owl” in the title and was so boring for me I found it unreadable. Might that have been Alan Garner’s[The Owl Service](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Owl_Service)? Haven’t read it myself, having grown out of fantasy/mystical novels by then, but he has his followers. I can’t remember turning vehemently against any of the set texts in my school, though I wasn’t too keen on Forster’s A Passage To India. By the time I got to Advanced Level EngLit, they chose the 17th century for the special period, and that I loved, though I can see why lots hated it [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-had-read-in-high-school-that-you-absolutely-hated/1022732.md?page=2)