The books we read in school can often make or break our relationship with reading. Sometimes our English teachers introduce us to new favorites we would never have read otherwise — and sometimes they test our love of literature with total slogs.
We asked the Bookstr team which required reading books they’ve loved and loathed over the years. Join us as we revisit the epic literary highs and lows of our English classes.
A Tale of Two Tragedies
My favorite required reading from high school AP English was The Great Gatsby. I loved the group discussions we had in class about it and all of the complex narratives of the characters. So many people were in full support of Gatsby and Daisy, but others had an opinion on the moral issues at hand! The Great Gatsby is one of those novels where you can get lost in the time period and almost gain a better understanding of what the “Roaring ’20s” were like.
One of my least favorite required reads was Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. This was one of my least favorites because I was so disappointed with the ending! In class we were tasked with writing a new ending, but with a few guidelines. There really wasn’t a way to undo the sad ending, as it was foreshadowed throughout, and was almost inevitable!
–Marissa Manzek, Social
Grim Family Sagas
My favorite required reading from AP Literature was The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I loved the feminist perspective and the exploration of colonization and misogyny in this extremely grim novel. None of the characters are likeable people, but I like morally gray characters who undergo a huge growth arc, which these characters did by the end.
My least favorite required reading was Hamlet by Shakespeare. I have had to read nearly all of his plays throughout my education, and I have hated every single one. I don’t mind reading books in Older English, but I feel like I can’t read Shakespeare without having a translator next to me to actually understand and enjoy the piece.
–Solenn Vincent, Social
Queer Gems
I loved The Great Gatsby. It was probably the closest I ever got to learning anything about LGBTQ+ history in high school. Later, in college, Carmilla especially stood out as this eerie, unexpected little queer gem buried in the curriculum.
On the other hand, I absolutely hated Brave New World. It was kind of cringe hearing my high school English teacher say “Alpha” out loud, and honestly, I think other classic dystopias pulled off the genre way better.
–Alecander Seiler, Social
Gripping Drama
My favorite book was The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I read it in my eighth grade English class, and I still read it to this day because it’s one of my favorites. I love a good revenge plot, and getting to see the count cleverly ruin the lives of those who wronged him was just so well written. I also liked the other elements in the book, such as a treasure hunt, the actual history incorporated in it, and a little romance.
A book I didn’t like was All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. I’m not the biggest fan of war books, simply because they tend to be so gruesome and depressing (which is understandable given the content). Also, the book just seemed to drag on forever, and I didn’t like that.
–Hannah Childers, Editorial
Deep Dive
I was kind of a nerd, so I was so excited when my teachers assigned books! My favorite was definitely 1984 by George Orwell. My teacher taught it so well, and I found it very eye-opening.
I wouldn’t say I particularly disliked any of the required reading books, but I had a love-hate relationship with Atonement by Ian McEwan. I think analyzing it over and over again for three months made me feel a bit bitter towards it. Looking back on it, it was a great book.
–Laura Mariné, Editorial
Faith Tested
My favorite required reading was Night by Elie Wiesel. Though not strictly a memoir, its recounting of Elie’s experience in Auschwitz introduced me to a different kind of storytelling that sticks with me today. Reading about Elie’s own spiritual crisis was a defining moment for me.
My least favorite, hands down, was The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I could not connect with that book in the slightest, and found it so incredibly infuriating to read.
–Cassandra Fushia, Editorial
Heartache and Heartbreak
I’m lucky that I’ve liked most every required reading I’ve had to do for school. But if I had to select an especially good book from those years, it would be Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. This historical novel takes a look at the buried legacy of WWII Japanese internment camps. The story follows two young children in the 1940s: one Chinese American, the other Japanese American. Despite their feuding cultures, they become close, but the harsh, racist policy of the war tears them apart for years. The story was full of incredible pathos, and I find myself tempted to read it again.
As for the one required book I hated, that would have to be Arthur Miller’s play, After the Fall. This semi-autobiographical work features a character that is clearly supposed to be a stand-in for Marilyn Monroe. Miller’s portrayal of this character is incredibly bitter, and, quite frankly, offensive. I was screaming in frustration and disgust during my entire readthrough.
–Kaija Strong, Editorial
Follies of Man
One book I loved reading in school was Frankenstein by Mary Shelley from my senior year of high school. [It’s] an iconic classic read, and being a fan of books that give spooky vibes, I instantly fell in love with it. The novel tells the classic tale of Frankenstein and how a young scientist creates a creature in an unusual experiment. To me, it’s an easy classic read that is perfect when needing some spooky vibes.
As for a book I hated, it would have to be one that I recently read for college: Paradise Lost by John Milton. Despite my professor being a saint and breaking the reading up to [make it] easier to digest, it was just a read that I could barely get through. While it does have important themes and meaning to the words, it was infuriating to understand it and made me question my major choice a few times.
–Melissa Mittendorff, Outreach & Editorial
New Worlds
I may get some flak for this based on a few other entries on this list, but I despised The Great Gatsby. It’s nothing against the book or writing itself, but it had everything to do with the way Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship was romanticized by both my teacher and classmates. I thought they were two terrible people and found nothing appealing about them, their story, or their relationship to one another, and it made the book hard to enjoy. I also absolutely hated The Scarlet Letter, and that was because of the writing (Nathaniel Hawthorne will never say in one sentence what he could stretch out to several paragraphs).
I loved a lot of the required reading books, though, especially my early exposures to dystopian sci-fi: 1984, Brave New World, The Machine Stops, and Fahrenheit 451, especially.
–Cara Broel, Editorial & Outreach
Postcolonial Fallout
My favorite required reading was probably White Teeth by Zadie Smith, which I didn’t expect to enjoy as much as I did. It’s kind of a weird book — a sprawling, unhinged multigenerational epic — but I loved how unserious it was and also how clever Smith’s use of the teeth/roots motif was, so much so that I was actually disappointed we didn’t get to write a paper on it in senior year AP Lit and ended up writing said paper for a literary studies class in college.
My least favorite required reading by a landslide, meanwhile, was Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Boring beyond belief.
–Phoebe Pineda, Editorial
Thanks to our incredible staff for weighing in! Now it’s your turn: What required reading books did you fall in love with? Which books do you still absolutely despise, years later? Let us know on Instagram, Bluesky, or Facebook!
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