# What's the worst book you had to read for school? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 11, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427 "2003-12-11T20:28:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krisfer_the_Cat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/141 "2003-12-13T16:36:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Malthus \* > \*\*My thought exactly - many of these are, in fact, excellent books; just not suitable for teens with the attention span of a mayfly. > > \*\* That was my thought as I was scrolling through this thread. So much of whats on those reading lists was never intended to be read by kids. Why the education system in this country doesn’t look att hat issue is beyond me. there are a great many books I tried to read when I was much too young that I have retried as an adult and enjoyed immensely. This does NOT mean however, I plan to go off on a Steinbeck binge. He can stay in the literary trash can for all I care. **norinew** I suspect with the wisdom of nearly 40 years, that Flowers for Algernon hit to close to home at an age when I was unable to emotionally distance myself. MY mother worked with handicapped children and my brother was severely learning disabled. I dont think at 17 I was emotionally mature enough to qualify the larger issues of that piece of dreck. _shrug_ It was still a rotten book to hand to a teen. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/142 "2003-12-13T17:09:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Michael Ellis \* > **The Giver, a stupid, snowy book about a fairly generic dystopia that outlaws…something that a generic dystopia would outlaw because they’re, like, a dystopia and shit. Dystopia’s are bad! My friends and I all hated the thing.** Yea! I mean, what the hell were they against? No one sets up a dystopia in the middle of nowhere just cause it’d be fun. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/143 "2003-12-13T17:24:47Z")
But books like **A Separate Peace** , and **Death Be Not Proud** (dammit, someone else must have suffered through that one!) _are_ targeted towards teenagers… and they still elicit negative emotions from them. ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/144 "2003-12-13T17:38:36Z")
I’m not in school right now, thank goodness. Look, I hated it, nobody’s going to be able to convince me otherwise. Just because it’s “great literature” means everybody’s going to like it, right? ---
**Author:** ![merrily](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@merrily](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrily)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/145 "2003-12-13T17:57:36Z")
I hated _Tess_ and _The Pearl_. Why are so many of the books foisted off on kids so miserably sad? Are they trying to teach kids something about life? If so, all they are doing is teaching them about literature–that literature is dreary. Which is such a crime. ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/146 "2003-12-13T19:55:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by merrily \* > \*\*Why are so many of the books foisted off on kids so miserably sad? Are they trying to teach kids something about life? > > If so, all they are doing is teaching them about literature–that literature is dreary. \*\* And then we complain that the kids don’t read enough. And yea, when I’d wander through the Young Adult section in the bookstore where I worked, everything was so depressing. Someone lost a parent, all their parents, was lost in the woods, destroyed their lives on drugs, got pregnant, lost a boyfriend/girlfriend/platonic friend in a horrible car accident/plane crash, stood up for themselves and had bad things happen as a result, or some combination of the above. ---
**Author:** ![haardvark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@haardvark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/haardvark)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/147 "2003-12-13T20:42:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cervaise \* > \*\*I hated _Tess of the D’Urbervilles._ Never tried to read it again, though I know I probably should, since I was too young. > \*\* Oh, _preach it_. I read that for senior English in HS, and we only had to take a comprehension test (no essay). So, I read the entire book on the Sunday before the monday test. On that sunday, I accidentally dropped the book in the (unflushed) toilet, but had to clean it up as best I could to finish reading. After I was done, I wanted to send it back there, but Dad didn’t want me to screw up his plumbing. The only good part was that some turkey tried to leech a _precis_ from me just before the test started, and I spun some characters and scenes from whole cloth from the “2nd half of the book” which I knew he had not read… ;\> ---
**Author:** ![haardvark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@haardvark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/haardvark)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/148 "2003-12-13T20:47:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by amarone \* > \*\*Henry IV Part 1. Followed by anything else by Shakespeare. \*\* huh. This was the only Shakespeare we did that I liked. Different strokes and all that… ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/149 "2003-12-13T21:30:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cervaise \* > \*\*I hated _Tess of the D’Urbervilles._ Never tried to read it again, though I know I probably should, since I was too young. > \*\* Another vote for Tess of the d’Urbervilles. It’s the worst book I’ve ever read. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/150 "2003-12-13T21:46:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by AngelicGemma \* > \*\*Another vote for Tess of the d’Urbervilles. It’s the worst book I’ve ever read. \*\* Then you will just love Jude the Obscure. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/151 "2003-12-13T21:59:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by whiterabbit \* > \*\*Look, I hated it, nobody’s going to be able to convince me otherwise. Just because it’s “great literature” means everybody’s going to like it, right? \*\* Oh, I don’t mean to say that you have to like it. It’s just that your remarks seemed to indicate that you approached _Heart of Darkness_ as if it were some sort of extended _National Geographic_ article, intended to tell you all about what Africa was like! It ain’t a travelogue. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/152 "2003-12-13T22:11:55Z")
I don’t like reading Dickens, but most of what he writes works very well on stage. I hate \* Romeo and Juliet\* But my absolute hands down vote for most useless book in school was the Brockett edition of _The History of The Theatre_. I realise this isn’t a textbook thread but I hated that book with a passion. I hope Brockett is burning in hell for how dry and ugly he made what should have been an interesting topic. ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/153 "2003-12-13T23:18:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Early Out \* > \*\*Oh, I don’t mean to say that you have to like it. It’s just that your remarks seemed to indicate that you approached _Heart of Darkness_ as if it were some sort of extended _National Geographic_ article, intended to tell you all about what Africa was like! It ain’t a travelogue. \*\* Well, yeah, I know, but I do hope that if I read a book set in some time and place, it actually happens in that time and place, instead of some imaginary version of it that never happened. Besides, the racism in it just grated until I couldn’t forgive it. ESPECIALLY if Conrad had been in Africa. You’d think he’d realize the native people weren’t idiots. I know it’s an old book, but it was a very hard slog largely because of that. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/154 "2003-12-14T01:47:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by whiterabbit \* > \*\*Well, yeah, I know, but I do hope that if I read a book set in some time and place, it actually happens in that time and place, instead of some imaginary version of it that never happened. Besides, the racism in it just grated until I couldn’t forgive it. ESPECIALLY if Conrad had been in Africa. You’d think he’d realize the native people weren’t idiots. I know it’s an old book, but it was a very hard slog largely because of that. \*\* Sigh. I’ll give this one more try, and then I surrender. First, it’s _ **fiction** _, not a work of history. It’s _supposed_ to be an imaginary version of events that never actually happened. That’s what fiction is. It’s not supposed to be an account of any real journey taken by any real person at any real time. Second, Conrad isn’t the racist. The European exploiters, of whom the narrator is one, are the racists. _That’s Conrad’s point_, don’t you see? Conrad was appalled at what the Belgians were doing in the Congo, and he’d seen it first-hand. In this novel, he has his narrator describing the way he, _the narrator_, views Africa. Conrad means for you to condemn this attitude, by revealing it to you for what it is. The racism of the narrator is _supposed_ to grate on you. The narrator isn’t Conrad; the narrator is a character created by Conrad, a character that isn’t supposed to be sympathetic, a character who isn’t voicing Conrad’s opinions. The uncomfortable fact is that the narrator voices the opinions of many of the European colonizers of the period. If Conrad didn’t want the reader to face up to those unpleasant truths, then he probably would have written a book about kittens. This is the danger of writing first-person narrative. Literal-minded readers inevitably confuse the narrator with the author. Sometimes, they’re the same, but other times, as here, they’re manifestly not. Feel free to condemn a book because you don’t like it, but don’t condemn it because you’ve simply misunderstood it. ---
**Author:** ![whiterabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/cab0a1/32.png) [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/155 "2003-12-14T01:51:55Z")
I didn’t mean to completely derail this thread. Fine. Whatever. I still hated the book because I found it boring and very slow-moving. Maybe my growing up in the 80s and early 90s screwed up my attention span permanently. I see no reason to read, supposedly for pleasure, about a boring depressing shitty time and place – whatever really happened or not. ---
**Author:** ![Rysdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7cd45c/32.png) [@Rysdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysdad)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/156 "2003-12-14T02:05:32Z")
I was going to climb on the **Great Expectations** manure wagon, but I had forgotten about **A Separate Peace.** I…can’t…choose. I think Great Expectorations was the first book I threw at the wall upon completion, but A Steaming Piece was just as despicable. I’d gladly let my son use Cliff’s Notes or whatever other kind of shortcut he could find to complete the necessary homework as regards those books. I couldn’t, in all fairness and honesty, force him to read that crap. His time is more valuable than that. ---
**Author:** ![BellaDellaItalia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BellaDellaItalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellaDellaItalia)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/157 "2003-12-14T02:46:26Z")
Scott O’Dell I just don’t like. He is so boring. ---
**Author:** ![CadburyAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@CadburyAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CadburyAngel)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/158 "2003-12-14T05:14:57Z")
Steinbeck always makes me feel like one of those naps that you take on Sunday afternoon, and you think you’ll just lie down for a few minutes but then you wake up hours later and it’s dark and you’re groggy and you haven’t gotten anything done and the day is shot all to hell. Sorry that it’s an abstract description, but that’s how I feel: The Pearl, The Red Pony, The Grapes of Wrath… blegh. Nobody wins, ever. I liked **Watership Down** but I don’t think it’s worth studying in a class. It’s a book about rabbits and they do some stuff, and it’s exciting, but it doesn’t have a ton of deep themes. Same with **Romeo and Juliet**. Why do they keep assigning this one to teenagers? It’s fine in performance, but why not teach something that has some layers to it? Thucydides’ **History of the Peloponnesian War** is so hopelessly dull, I don’t think it would be exciting even if you had lived through the damn war and were reading the book to see if he included your name. Same with Josephus and **The Jewish War** , except when he veered off into gruesome atrocities for a few pages here and there. Herodotus actually is okay in small chunks, especially his more random stuff (like the concubine that gave birth to a lion). I dig Margaret Atwood, I’m sorry you guys had her forced on you. **A Tale of Two Cities** worked once it picked up stride (about halfway through), but it reads like the author was beta-testing the concept of foreshadowing. The storm is like the war. The storm is the war. Okay. Yes. Stop giving the storm more pages than the characters. It’s a freakin’ meteorological event. **Heart of Darkness** didn’t work for me either, but I didn’t get very far into it at all. My teacher let us watch **Apocalypse, Now** instead. Finally, **The Iliad**. I’ve had it taught to me at great length, twice. I seriously think that people should only teach books 1-10, then 20 to the end, and maybe the book when Hera sexes up Zeus if the students are looking bored. Most of the important stuff is in those chapters, and then there’s this long dry stretch that reminds me of when television shows are doing filler episodes in order to save the good stuff for sweeps. ---
**Author:** ![Marlitharn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@Marlitharn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marlitharn)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/159 "2003-12-14T13:20:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CadburyAngel \* > \*\*I liked **Watership Down** but I don’t think it’s worth studying in a class. It’s a book about rabbits and they do some stuff, and it’s exciting, but it doesn’t have a ton of deep themes. > \*\* I wish I had read _Watership Down_ before I took a class on world mythologies in college. The book is crammed with mythological archetypes that would have been a lot more fun to ferret out and write about than the Celts, which was what I ended up writing my final paper on. I love _Watership Down._ ---
**Author:** ![FabioClone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5f8ce5/32.png) [@FabioClone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FabioClone)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427/160 "2003-12-14T16:02:14Z")
I’m torn between **Moll Flanders** and **Mill on the Fucking Floss.** Now I like the vast majority of the titles mentioned in this thread. I scoff at Jane Austin and Dickens. You might say that I have a high tolerance for long, outdated snore-fests. It takes a higher quality of awfulness to shake me. While Moll Flanders certainly bored me to tears, I have to admit that I at least found parts of it mildly interesting. But Mill on the Floss… dear god. What would possess someone to write this story? Congratulations Miss Eliot. You’ve created a stable full of bland, unlikeable characters, an uninspired setting, and a plot so dull I can’t even impale myself on it to end the pain. To make things worse, my professor also showed the Mill on the Floss movie in class. Yes, there’s a movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-book-you-had-to-read-for-school/218427.md?page=9)