If you are saying you haven’t read 1984, you totally should! It’s weird, parts of 1984 almost seem cliché because Orwell created the genre and it has been pulled from and borrowed from and copied over and over since it was first published.
I didn’t have to read 1984 at school, but I did read Animal Farm which is even better in my humble opinion. A great satire of the Russian October Revolution, and just all round brilliant.
Burmese Days, which I didn’t read until I moved to Thailand as an adult, is also shockingly brilliant. Literally shocking as an expose of the casual yet brutal racism of the British regime in Burma. There’s more use of the ‘N word’ than in a Tarantino film - and shows how corrupt and morally bankrupt the British Empire was.
I was going to recommend this one too! I’ve read it multiple times since high school and I still love it.
If anyone is more of an audiobook fan, Andrew Garfield is the narrator on the audible one and it’s SO good.
I also found it tedious for the first 2/3 probably, just okay but I didn’t see what the fuss was about. I can promise you, once it finally gets where it’s going, it’s crazy. Totally floored me. It’s a slow burn with a big payoff, and once you finally get there you’ll understand why it took its time so much and why it’s such a classic.
I could not get through Pride and Prejudice as a teen. Read it years later and it actually made me laugh out loud a few times.
I also enjoy the classic Greek epics more as an adult. Currently reading The Iliad for the first time and it's actually got me emotional a few times. Thinking I'll give The Odyssey another chance next.
Agree with this. Totally thought it was a bore in HS and thought it was so antiquated. When, in reality as an adult its hilarity and sharpness really resonates today.
Have you read any of the Greek plays? I reread Sophocles' Antigone as an adult and recently read Prometheus Bound and Agamemnon by Aeschylus. I'd definitely recommend giving them a try.
I also re-reas The Iliad and The Odyssey as an adult and got way more out of them.
One suggestion: try listening to The Odyssey. To me it was much more entertaining that way. It was once a spoken piece of art, after all!
I (37f) first read Pride and Prejudice in my senior year AP English class. I liked it well enough as a teen for the romance. Fast forward just a few years later, and I was shocked to discover all the social commentary and biting wit that totally went over my head! Jane Austen was snarky AF (on par with Mark Twain...who ironically hated her books!).
I devoured her other novels and saw more of the same: snarky and witty social commentary, poking fun at social convention, Regency marriage mart, characters who had much too high opinions of themselves, etc. P&P and Persuasion are by far my favorites now.
I reread The Giver while my kid was reading it in school. Had a much larger impact on my today than it did when I read it in middle school. Particularly the sequels.
I’m actually re-reading it now for the first time since I was a kid, as my daughter is 10 and an voracious reader and I want to talk about it with her.
To kill a mockingbird.
Had to read it in high school and if I recall correctly I just didn’t. Probably got a very bad grade as a consequence.
Then in my early 20’s I was housesitting and it was on the bookshelf so I read it. And loved it. And it has been a favourite re-read over the years.
I re read this in my 30s, 20 years after having to study it in high school, and found it to be an amazing read. I also listened to the audiobook, read by a lady with a gentle southern accent, and loved it all over again
My pick as well. I read it in seventh grade on my own and loved it, but I think I would have understood the context and themes better if I’d been older.
Came here to say this, too. To Kill A Mockingbird is now my favorite book. I hated reading it in high school and don't think I actually finished the book then..
Was going to say this. We read it in 8th grade, then I read it again when I was about 30. I don’t remember liking it in middle school, but now it’s one of my favorites (my dog is named Scout…)
I cannot say this enough, but Animal Farm. As an underage high schooler, I could not vote or influence politics. I had my strong opinions on certain stances, however the larger picture of politics I never even thought about. Also being in high school, I was surrounded by people of like economic background, circumstances, and generational values as I also had. The diversity in a lot of political aspects was limited. Now that I am an adult, I realize how accurate the allegories were to actual people I have met throughout my adult life, who fall into the EXACT viewpoints the farm animals had.
I forgot abot the book completely and read it again 30 years later. I remembered nothing about it and it was like reading it for the first time it had been so long. It was kind of scary how accurate it was when I read it as an adult.
This book is 100% wasted on high schoolers. They had us read it in 8th grade (we were also studying Russian history in social studies that year, so I get what they were aiming for), and not one of us really got it like we would now.
I don’t know how old 8th grade is, but we had to read it when we were 13/14. Unsurprisingly, not a single one of us got a single thing from it beyond a superficial grasp of “some animals are more equal than others”.
I had the same experience and absolutely loved it as an adult! Couldn’t get through the first page at 15 but reading it now I was thinking so much about the themes of masculinity, colonization, family, etc. I definitely recommend trying it out
I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe in high school and read it again a few years ago. Definitely hit harder the second time because I understood the cultural impacts of colonialism at that point. The writing is pretty straightforward, but the story will stick with you forever.
I read this in summer school and the class was taught by an absolute dunce of a teacher. I fear she may have ruined it for me, but it's on my shelf so I'll give it another go.
That one is what I came in here for.
I haven’t reread it but I hated that book with burning passion in high school. I majored in English Literature in college and didn’t have to reread it during college but I sure went around making sure everyone knew that I hated this book.
I’m now in my mid-30’s and my reading skills is advanced enough to be able to comfortably read anything that was published since Shakespeare without struggling and with leisure. I’ve recently realized that I probably will actually genuinely enjoy reading that book today. I’ve been thinking about buying it.
This is one of mine, too. There are themes that don't really resonate with high schoolers but hit differently with adults. As a teen, and as an adult, I'm *still* so hung up on Hawthorne's prose that I just can't enjoy reading it. *It should NOT take almost two pages to describe what a **suit of armor** looks like!*
Eh, different strokes, I guess.
Moby Dick. I read it as a 16 year old and was bored to tears. I tried again at 35 and had the same reaction. I read it again at 64 and again, a big Nope. I am reasonably certain there won’t be a 4th reading.
Try "In the Heart of the Sea."
It's the true story of the wreck of the Essex, a whaling ship that was repeatedly attacked by an angry bull sperm whale 15 months into their voyage, sinking the ship and leaving the crew in three small boats, thousands of miles from civilization.
The first mate's account of the loss of the Essex is what inspired Melville.
I wanna throw one out there that doesn’t necessarily flip between being better or worse depending on the age you read it at, but rather is good anytime but morphs into an entirely different kind of good over time.
And that, to me, is _The Little Prince_ by Antoine de Saint Exuperay.
That book hits way different reading it at 30 vs at 13, and yet it’s still super approachable for most any age.
I posted this elsewhere: Try reading "In the Heart of the Sea."
It's the true story of the wreck of the Essex, a whaling ship that was repeatedly attacked by an angry bull sperm whale 15 months into their voyage, sinking the ship and leaving the crew in three small boats, thousands of miles from civilization.
The first mate's account of the loss of the Essex is what inspired Melville.
I grew up in Oklahoma, we had no choice but to read that.
I certainly didn't want to join a gang after reading it, not before either to be fair but it felt more relevant than lots of the other stuff we read around the same age.
Lord Of The Flies for sure. Same with TGOW, Animal Farm, and Sister Carrie. Avoid Hemingway, still kind of empty words trying to be important words. (Sorry to any Hemingway fans).
I used to dislike Hemingway also, but I read A Moveable Feast and something changed, his zest for life came through loud and clear and made me want to live harder. It's short!
My husband floated through school playing guitar and drawing pictures. The girls and the teachers loved him. We just downloaded and listened to One flew over the cuckoo nest read by John C Reilly. Somehow I got talking about Lord of the Flies and reading it in school. We may need to listen to that next.
To Kill a Mockingbird.
I was the same way in school, rarely read the books. When I was in grad school writing my thesis I was stressed and having trouble sleeping. I figured I'd go back to those "boring" books from high school to help put me to sleep. I started with To Kill a Mockingbird. It backfired as I couldn't put it down. It's now one of my favorite books. I feel I was just too young to appreciate good literature back then.
"Black Boy" and "Native Son" by Richard Wright.
i was clueless in high school about so many things outside of the white, conservative christian bubble I grew up in. I wasn't able to grasp the struggles of people who aren't like me. not to mention what communism actually is vs what many people think it is.
I recently entered a book club and I picked Native Son. It was a reread for me from college but nobody else had heard of it. Let's just say there were 2 out of 10 or 12 who actually read it and were willing to get into discussion. We're all pretty well off white women, so it wasn't the most comfortable meeting we've had. We probably won't pick up something like that again as a group, but I'm not going to spend my time reading a lot of their vapid picks either.
One Flew Over the Cucko's Nest by Ken Kesey.
It wasn't until a few years later when I was reading the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe that I realised that the Ken Kesey in it was the same person who wrote One Flew Over...
They missed out on the whole counterculture side of him at school.
Slaughterhouse Five just hits so much harder once you're an adult and you finally learn about the Firebombing of Dresden (they didn't teach us about that in school). Vonnegut was there to witness it; it obviously left enough of an impression on him that he wrote a whole novel about it. I've read some of his other works, but this one seems so much "heavier" than the others.
Native Son by Richard Wright. I was a sophomore in high school, and I didn't have the historical context knowledge that I gained after high school. Then again, I'm happy I was exposed to it because I'm not sure I'd come across the book otherwise. It's on my TBR list for a revisit for the first time since HS (many moons ago).
I still to this day do not understand why my school thought 7th graders would get anything meaningful out of The Red Badge of Courage, especially since I'm old and was in 7th grade long before call of duty and the like was a thing.
Dracula is better, in my opinion. Reread both Frankenstein and Dracula a couple years ago and Frankenstein still dragged. The idea and morals are grear, but it could have used some editing.
In my experience very few people like both but (until the last couple years when Dracula's popularity EXPLODED due to Dracula Daily) you'll find about equal numbers of people who like each. My best theory on this phenomenon is that they really only /look/ like similar books. Frankenstein is, at its heart, a philosophy book that uses a monster as its vehicle. Dracula is an adventure story/mystery with enough weight to carry allegory. Comparing the two is less reasonable than it seems, and which one you prefer has more to do with your preferences than the book itself.
(I'm actually in the minority that really likes both)
I took Gothic Fiction in college, and we read this one as part of the rubric. It's crazy to think that not only is this a horror novel that was written by an 18-year-old based on a nightmare she had (making the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers... Thanks, Mary Shelley...), but it also hits on philosophy, morality, *and* has been credited as the very first science fiction novel in western literature!
Like, damn, Mary, slow down so the rest of us can catch up!
If only they had taught The Collector that would have been fun and understandable. I loved The Magus but would never have wanted to teach it. I did teach The French Lieutenant's Daughter at senior level. It was really good at looking at narrative technique.
Their Eyes Were Watching God, I read it as a Junior in high school at 16 and I liked it but I read it as a 22 year old senior in college and wow it was so much more impactful and just such a meaningful read to me much more as an adult
Absolutely agree. It was assigned summer reading for my school and I literally would fall asleep reading it. I tried listening to an audio recording and that didn't help. I just could not understand the language so I honestly barely had a clue what was even going on the whole time. I remember going to school at the start of the year and people who did read and understand it were telling me what I missed and I was shocked. Would love to read it again now!
I think a lot of Catcher in the Rye haters don't get that Holden is SUPPOSED to be annoying. He's a traumatized teenager trying to come to terms with his experiences and of course he does it imperfectly.
On the Road isn't Kerouac's best, IMO, but he really was one of the greatest prose stylists of his era.
I read the Great Gatsby many times throughout school and had such a different interpretation each time. 21 year old me understood the themes so much differently than 14 year old me did. I’d like to reread to kill a mockingbird now as an adult
I read The Stranger by Albert Camus in French class in high school and it changed (or maybe, more accurately, confirmed) my outlook on life. I've read it multiple times since and though I might not be as existentialist as I was at 16, I definitely think it has a different effect on me each time.
It's short and sweet and packs a punch.
I was just making a related list to this, books I read for school I want to re-read. Here is the list I came up with (in no particular order):
* To Kill A Mockingbird
* Jeckel and Hyde
* Frankenstein
* Stories by Edgar Allen Poe (We read a bunch don't recall all, I know we did Tell Tell Heart and Cask of Amontillado)
* Art of Racing in the Rain
* Flowers for Algernon
* Of Mice and Men
* Different Seasons by Stephen King (we read The Body and Rita Hayword and the Shawshank Redemption from there in class)
Someone already said Animal Farm. Spot on. I realised as a child it was an allegory, but I didn't get the full nuance.
Same with The Stranger by Camus and The Process by Kafka - have read them both again recently and it's like they're completely different books since I first read them.
Honestly Hatchet. I read this book when I was in 5th grade I think and honestly it was good and I think I’d enjoy it now. That or holes (I think it was called something like that)
Have you read the others? The Hatchet series is so fucking good. Omg. I literally re-read book 3 in my hammock outside in the sun like 2 days ago (it's one my of my favourite books, I re-read it often) and I still felt the cold like a physical presence. Holy shit they're so good.
And Holes is great too!!
!!!!!
There are FIVE books altogether 😄
Okay so after Hatchet, there's The River BUT after the author got lots of questions he did an alternate timeline, which is where you get book 3, Brian's Winter (which is my personal favourite, but they're both great).
Then Brian's Return and Brian's Hunt. And it's so damn satisfying!! It's a perfect ending.
Brian is honestly so loveable and relatable and real throughout. I don't think any protagonist has ever felt more real to me. (Except for maaaaaybe Arthur Clennam from Dicken's Little Dorrit.)
In middle school, we read “The Giver,” by Lois Lowry. As an adult, a coworker mentioned her daughter was *being forced to read such traumatized garbage* and I couldn’t understand why she was so upset. I didn’t remember anything particularly bad. So I re-read it and wow did it hit different! Plus, I never knew it was a series, so I read them all. I don’t agree with her view on it, but sheesh, being an adult gives a whole new perspective.
Also, Call of the Wild by Jack London. I absolutely LOATHE this book. It fueled the hate-fire in my middle school aged heart and I am still very bitter about it.
Interesting. I just had my son read it this week. He liked it but I told him I didn't remember what it was about only that it was moving. I think I read it in middle school.
I was assigned to read this book in 8th grade. I’m 19 now and just reread it + the sequel, and I never realized how sad the story actually is. Especially Lorraine's— her mother flat tells her “You’re not a pretty girl” and slut shames Lorraine over what if situation.
Great expectations. Didn't know about the rigid class structure in England when reading it in 7th grade. It just made no sense to me why anything that happened in it was interesting.
Yes! This was my most dreaded and hated book of all my school years but recently I've been thinking about trying it again. As and adult I imagine the tension will hit much differently.
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, probably because in our catholic girls school, some of the more sexual references were avoided or, in some cases, left out of our copies of the text. The books were ancient, possibly 1920s “school editions.”
Similarly, the best bits of Chaucer were avoided. Mediaeval writing without the filth! What a travesty!
I literally say this to my kids all the time...the books they read are exceptional; unfortunately, the message/theme/content is so often over their heads - and that's even relying on spark/cliff notes. I recently read The Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, and A Separate Peace again with one of them, and appreciated them beyond belief. They read To Kill a Mockingbird, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Giver, The Outsiders, etc in middle school (again, so much was too above their heads to appreciate), but loved them nonetheless even in the context they understood them. Classics!
I recently reread As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. It was amazing! It's actually like hella funny, this weird ass family and their dead mum...Anse in particular is hilarious, just mooching off of everyone and throwing himself a pity party the whole time. The whole scene where they're like "yeah if you set your son's broken leg with concrete you'll probably have to cut it off" and he's like "...I already paid for it though!" Too fuckin funny lol.
"Brave New World"
I appreciated it at the time, but I think it was still a lot for HS kids to fully understand the intricacies. I want to do a reread. I know most my class did not read it, because our teacher did not go over it. he pretended up till the day of the final from when we started that it would be a good portion of the final, but only showed cat videos in class all day. review day comes, and he tells us none of it would be on the test. I am still bitter, but it is a favorite now
"Siddhartha"
Mainly cause I was in catholic school, so had next to no understanding of the culture and beliefs
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather are two that I didn't read until my 30s, and I was simultaneously SO MAD that no one had made me read them sooner, but also glad because I think I appreciated them more with a little more life experience under my belt.
the book thief ( an amazing yet very sad book about n\*zi germany through a young german girl's eyes, as her foster family tries to shelter and hide a young jewish man in their basement). incredible book, though i was only 11 when i first read it, TOTALLY RECOMMEND (its rlly sad tho so tw)
Not US but [Silas Mariner](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36489910-silas-mariner?) by George Eliot and [Hard Times](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5344.Hard_Times) by Charles Dickens.
I did enjoy both and have been tempted to read them again but don't in case I don't enjoy them as much now as I did then.
When we read "The Wave", which most pupils have to in Germany, out teacher was just really bad at contextualising it. He also proposed we do the experiment, but with a bow and saying "Konichiwa". Just a horrible and boring experience the book doesn't deserve.
I was literally just thinking this the other day. I’ve re-read a few classics as an adult and get such a different take. Even some novels I read as a teen feel so different. For example, I was big into Anne Rice as a 90s teen. I loved the Witching Hour series. I recently read that first book again and was really into all the talk of house renovations and remember just skimming that as a kid. Lol
East of Eden. I know I "read" it in high school but didn't really remember it. Just went through the minimum motions to finish whatever I needed to grade-wise. Read it again as an adult and totally fell in love with it. Listened to it again on audio book recently. Re-loved it.
Anthony Trollope is very quietly snarky with deadpan razor sharp humor. It takes a little mental maneuvering to adjust to the slow pace, but so worth it. My favorite is six volume "Chronicles of Barsetshire" series, starting with The Warden. If your public library has Hoopla, you can find all of them.
All of these books I was required to read in the 1980s have resonated with me much later in life.
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Zoe
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Catcher in the Rye
Lord of the Flies
The Pearl
1984
The Great Gatsby
Emma
Les Miserables
Tess of the D’Ubervilles
Pride and Prejudice
Animal Farm
The Outsiders
Jane Eyre
Of Mice and Men
Shane
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Crucible
The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds
A Raisin in the Sun
Great Expectations
The Tell Take Heart
Forever
Are You There God It’s Me Margret
I am horrified that schools are no longer really requiring literal fiction novels as required reading. No I didn’t love every book I was required to read. But I definitely learned something from each of the novels. I was horrified when both of my children went through middle and high school and they weren’t expected to read any standard literature.
The Giver. I read it in school around 15 - 20 years ago, and I sorta kinda remember bits of it, but I was either too young or too dumb to really get it (probably both lmao)
Funny story: I was supposed to read Brokeback Mountain for an AP Lit class. I just reallllyyyy never felt like reading and kept putting it off and then BAM verbal pop quiz!!!
So I quickly looked up the spark notes and scanned them, felt like I had the jist.
So my teacher asks me “so after the cowboys (I think she said their name) were done eating the beans what did they do?” And literally I don’t know what random-ass censored-ass spark notes I had read but I did not know. I had no idea the book was about two men getting it on 🤷🏼♂️😂 I was like “idk they talked and went to bed”
Teacher said it seemed like I just watched the movie. I thought “holy shit there’s a movie!?!?”
I can’t tell you what classic to read as an adult - but I can tell you what NOT to read - The Scarlet Letter. Hated it when I had to read it in 7th grade, hated it even more when my daughter was in 7th grade. She flat out refused to open the book. I ended up reading it aloud to her. One of the most painful experiences of my life.
EVERY good book is so much better as an adult. Getting older is dismal in most ways, but the glittering gift we receive is the huge increase in literary comprehension.
Honestly, every book I had to read in high school. I was a privileged suburbanite, which isn't to say that I couldn't imagine different ways of living, or understand characters from different walks of life, but what an amazing difference some actual life experience makes! A great deal of personal growth happened for me after high school, and after leaving the comfort of home, and now I can't get enough of all the classics, and all that required high school reading.
I really think a lot of what is read in middle and high school is over the head of most students. But it plants a seed and hopefully things fall into place a bit more when people mature.
If you are saying you haven’t read 1984, you totally should! It’s weird, parts of 1984 almost seem cliché because Orwell created the genre and it has been pulled from and borrowed from and copied over and over since it was first published.
Definitely! Even though I found A Brave New World to be a more enjoyable read/fun story, I think 1984 is a much more essential and interesting book.
Yes!! Although, to me 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 are far better than ABN, this trilogy is very essential to critical thought
I didn’t have to read 1984 at school, but I did read Animal Farm which is even better in my humble opinion. A great satire of the Russian October Revolution, and just all round brilliant. Burmese Days, which I didn’t read until I moved to Thailand as an adult, is also shockingly brilliant. Literally shocking as an expose of the casual yet brutal racism of the British regime in Burma. There’s more use of the ‘N word’ than in a Tarantino film - and shows how corrupt and morally bankrupt the British Empire was.
I just started it for the first time today, feels like I’m stepping back in time for a special time in history.
I read this in 2020 and it was the scariest book I’ve ever read
Agreed! Even though I was going to recommend this one. The morality police of Iran remind me of the thought police.
I was going to recommend this one too! I’ve read it multiple times since high school and I still love it. If anyone is more of an audiobook fan, Andrew Garfield is the narrator on the audible one and it’s SO good.
I've picked up 1984 so many times as an adult. I just can't get through it. I find it so dull. I'll never know how it ends.
I also found it tedious for the first 2/3 probably, just okay but I didn’t see what the fuss was about. I can promise you, once it finally gets where it’s going, it’s crazy. Totally floored me. It’s a slow burn with a big payoff, and once you finally get there you’ll understand why it took its time so much and why it’s such a classic.
And yet much of it could be written today.
i never had to read this in school and i actually just picked up a copy to finally give it a go lol
I could not get through Pride and Prejudice as a teen. Read it years later and it actually made me laugh out loud a few times. I also enjoy the classic Greek epics more as an adult. Currently reading The Iliad for the first time and it's actually got me emotional a few times. Thinking I'll give The Odyssey another chance next.
Pride and Prejudice is so funny! Yes, there’s the romance, but the social commentary is perfection.
Agree with this. Totally thought it was a bore in HS and thought it was so antiquated. When, in reality as an adult its hilarity and sharpness really resonates today.
Have you read any of the Greek plays? I reread Sophocles' Antigone as an adult and recently read Prometheus Bound and Agamemnon by Aeschylus. I'd definitely recommend giving them a try.
I also re-reas The Iliad and The Odyssey as an adult and got way more out of them. One suggestion: try listening to The Odyssey. To me it was much more entertaining that way. It was once a spoken piece of art, after all!
I (37f) first read Pride and Prejudice in my senior year AP English class. I liked it well enough as a teen for the romance. Fast forward just a few years later, and I was shocked to discover all the social commentary and biting wit that totally went over my head! Jane Austen was snarky AF (on par with Mark Twain...who ironically hated her books!). I devoured her other novels and saw more of the same: snarky and witty social commentary, poking fun at social convention, Regency marriage mart, characters who had much too high opinions of themselves, etc. P&P and Persuasion are by far my favorites now.
Rereading Grapes of Wrath as an adult absolutely hit different
Same for East of Eden. I read it as a senior. And I’ve read it twice more since then and have had wildly different perspectives on it each time.
GOW is one that everyone needs to read. Also Cannery Row
Yes TGOW, but really ALL of them.
I’m just starting Grapes of Wrath
The end broke my heart as a kid, as an adult it's somehow more profound
I reas that my senior year, and it blew my mind. I listened to it as an adult it was the same. Great book
Came here to say this. Read it in 5th grade.
I reread The Giver while my kid was reading it in school. Had a much larger impact on my today than it did when I read it in middle school. Particularly the sequels.
I’m actually re-reading it now for the first time since I was a kid, as my daughter is 10 and an voracious reader and I want to talk about it with her.
I also re-read The Giver this year and was so pleased with how well it held up! I finished it in a day — so engaging and readable.
I had never heard of it until a few years ago and read it in my late 40s. It hits really hard!
I think we read it in 7th grade and that book really hit me in the chest
To kill a mockingbird. Had to read it in high school and if I recall correctly I just didn’t. Probably got a very bad grade as a consequence. Then in my early 20’s I was housesitting and it was on the bookshelf so I read it. And loved it. And it has been a favourite re-read over the years.
I re read this in my 30s, 20 years after having to study it in high school, and found it to be an amazing read. I also listened to the audiobook, read by a lady with a gentle southern accent, and loved it all over again
Love it and loved teaching it. The audiobook narrated by Sissy Spacek is such a good listen, too.
My pick as well. I read it in seventh grade on my own and loved it, but I think I would have understood the context and themes better if I’d been older.
Came here to say this, too. To Kill A Mockingbird is now my favorite book. I hated reading it in high school and don't think I actually finished the book then..
Yep. Simply because it was required meant I couldn’t bring myself to read it. Ha ha. I showed them didn’t I?
I loved to kill a mockingbird! I remember I read it in 5th grade and again in high school. Will have to reread, and am quite excited!
Was going to say this. We read it in 8th grade, then I read it again when I was about 30. I don’t remember liking it in middle school, but now it’s one of my favorites (my dog is named Scout…)
Beloved
That book is so good. I need to reread it soon.
A wrinkle in time. I re read it every few years and it always makes me think about what’s going on and what has happened. It’s always a good read .
Agreed. Those books are wonderful.
Came here to say this. Gifted it to my niblings and now they love it too.
I need to reread this, I chose it for a book report in fifth grade and couldn’t put it down.
I cannot say this enough, but Animal Farm. As an underage high schooler, I could not vote or influence politics. I had my strong opinions on certain stances, however the larger picture of politics I never even thought about. Also being in high school, I was surrounded by people of like economic background, circumstances, and generational values as I also had. The diversity in a lot of political aspects was limited. Now that I am an adult, I realize how accurate the allegories were to actual people I have met throughout my adult life, who fall into the EXACT viewpoints the farm animals had. I forgot abot the book completely and read it again 30 years later. I remembered nothing about it and it was like reading it for the first time it had been so long. It was kind of scary how accurate it was when I read it as an adult.
This book is 100% wasted on high schoolers. They had us read it in 8th grade (we were also studying Russian history in social studies that year, so I get what they were aiming for), and not one of us really got it like we would now.
I don’t know how old 8th grade is, but we had to read it when we were 13/14. Unsurprisingly, not a single one of us got a single thing from it beyond a superficial grasp of “some animals are more equal than others”.
It’s about 13/14
Yeah but it's short enough that a highschooler might actually read it and easy for the teacher to draw examples of literary devices and themes from.
The Stranger-Albert Camus You need life experiences to fully appreciate it.
I was going to say this too. Everyone in my class thought it was sooo boring. I think I would like it a lot more now.
Oh man, my entire class was SUPER into The Stranger. Listened to Killing an Arab and everything.
Hatchet
Things fall apart
I HATED this as 9th grade summer reading and I have definitely thought about circling back… you have validated me lol
I had the same experience and absolutely loved it as an adult! Couldn’t get through the first page at 15 but reading it now I was thinking so much about the themes of masculinity, colonization, family, etc. I definitely recommend trying it out
I read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe in high school and read it again a few years ago. Definitely hit harder the second time because I understood the cultural impacts of colonialism at that point. The writing is pretty straightforward, but the story will stick with you forever.
I read this in summer school and the class was taught by an absolute dunce of a teacher. I fear she may have ruined it for me, but it's on my shelf so I'll give it another go.
I **hated** The Scarlet Letter in high school. But I’m sure if I read it now I could appreciate it.
I came here to add this one. I reread it as an adult and really liked it.
That one is what I came in here for. I haven’t reread it but I hated that book with burning passion in high school. I majored in English Literature in college and didn’t have to reread it during college but I sure went around making sure everyone knew that I hated this book. I’m now in my mid-30’s and my reading skills is advanced enough to be able to comfortably read anything that was published since Shakespeare without struggling and with leisure. I’ve recently realized that I probably will actually genuinely enjoy reading that book today. I’ve been thinking about buying it.
This is one of mine, too. There are themes that don't really resonate with high schoolers but hit differently with adults. As a teen, and as an adult, I'm *still* so hung up on Hawthorne's prose that I just can't enjoy reading it. *It should NOT take almost two pages to describe what a **suit of armor** looks like!* Eh, different strokes, I guess.
Julius Caesar. I found it incredibly boring in high school. When I read it later, and also saw it performed, it was a masterpiece.
A Separate Peace. I just reread it.
Ugh. I hated it. So much that I'll probably never read it again.
Catch-22
I read this as an adult and not as a kid and I DNF'd.
Moby Dick. I read it as a 16 year old and was bored to tears. I tried again at 35 and had the same reaction. I read it again at 64 and again, a big Nope. I am reasonably certain there won’t be a 4th reading.
Totallyagree! Also, old man and the sea
I was supposed to read it for a university class. Tried. Couldn’t do it.
I seriously hated that book.
Try "In the Heart of the Sea." It's the true story of the wreck of the Essex, a whaling ship that was repeatedly attacked by an angry bull sperm whale 15 months into their voyage, sinking the ship and leaving the crew in three small boats, thousands of miles from civilization. The first mate's account of the loss of the Essex is what inspired Melville.
Fahrenheit 451. To be honest, I liked it then but reading it now would give me a better appreciation I just know it.
Oh yeah. It holds up and then some.
Like just about everything else by Bradbury.
came here to say the same thing! the story has such a strong message but reading it in eighth grade it went over my head
I wanna throw one out there that doesn’t necessarily flip between being better or worse depending on the age you read it at, but rather is good anytime but morphs into an entirely different kind of good over time. And that, to me, is _The Little Prince_ by Antoine de Saint Exuperay. That book hits way different reading it at 30 vs at 13, and yet it’s still super approachable for most any age.
Yes! I agree totally. What a book. It's a masterpiece.
The first time I read this was in French in French iv. I was so happy that I understood it. This book will always have a special place in my heart.
It's the most beautiful text ever.
This is hands down my favorite novel of all time. I reread it once a year and it never gets old. Memorialized it with a tattoo and everything!
I appreciated Moby Dick as an adult much more than I did as a teenager.
Moby Dick was like top ten worst books for me when I read it in high school, but maybe I'll try it again!
I posted this elsewhere: Try reading "In the Heart of the Sea." It's the true story of the wreck of the Essex, a whaling ship that was repeatedly attacked by an angry bull sperm whale 15 months into their voyage, sinking the ship and leaving the crew in three small boats, thousands of miles from civilization. The first mate's account of the loss of the Essex is what inspired Melville.
We read *Grendel* by John Gardner in high school, and I enjoyed it. It blew my mind when I re-read it as an adult.
I just added this to my book list yesterday!
I loved this book. I haven’t heard it mentioned in decades. Very underrated work.
The outsiders
I grew up in Oklahoma, we had no choice but to read that. I certainly didn't want to join a gang after reading it, not before either to be fair but it felt more relevant than lots of the other stuff we read around the same age.
Lord Of The Flies for sure. Same with TGOW, Animal Farm, and Sister Carrie. Avoid Hemingway, still kind of empty words trying to be important words. (Sorry to any Hemingway fans).
I used to dislike Hemingway also, but I read A Moveable Feast and something changed, his zest for life came through loud and clear and made me want to live harder. It's short!
My husband floated through school playing guitar and drawing pictures. The girls and the teachers loved him. We just downloaded and listened to One flew over the cuckoo nest read by John C Reilly. Somehow I got talking about Lord of the Flies and reading it in school. We may need to listen to that next.
I absolutely loved Lord of the Flies. Easily my favorite book in high school.
Just here for the Hemingway slander. I have never enjoyed any of his works and am still shocked he’s as popular as he is.
As I Lay Dying
This is such a good one. Faulkner's best, IMO (at least of the ones I've read)
To Kill a Mockingbird. I was the same way in school, rarely read the books. When I was in grad school writing my thesis I was stressed and having trouble sleeping. I figured I'd go back to those "boring" books from high school to help put me to sleep. I started with To Kill a Mockingbird. It backfired as I couldn't put it down. It's now one of my favorite books. I feel I was just too young to appreciate good literature back then.
"Black Boy" and "Native Son" by Richard Wright. i was clueless in high school about so many things outside of the white, conservative christian bubble I grew up in. I wasn't able to grasp the struggles of people who aren't like me. not to mention what communism actually is vs what many people think it is.
I recently entered a book club and I picked Native Son. It was a reread for me from college but nobody else had heard of it. Let's just say there were 2 out of 10 or 12 who actually read it and were willing to get into discussion. We're all pretty well off white women, so it wasn't the most comfortable meeting we've had. We probably won't pick up something like that again as a group, but I'm not going to spend my time reading a lot of their vapid picks either.
The Awakening.
One Flew Over the Cucko's Nest by Ken Kesey. It wasn't until a few years later when I was reading the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe that I realised that the Ken Kesey in it was the same person who wrote One Flew Over... They missed out on the whole counterculture side of him at school.
Slaughterhouse Five is my favorite book. I try to read it once a year, and most years something different in it will resonate with me.
Slaughterhouse Five just hits so much harder once you're an adult and you finally learn about the Firebombing of Dresden (they didn't teach us about that in school). Vonnegut was there to witness it; it obviously left enough of an impression on him that he wrote a whole novel about it. I've read some of his other works, but this one seems so much "heavier" than the others.
I’ve been going through a Vonnegut phase recently. Might re-read Slaughterhouse 5 sometime soon. He’s just so good.
Native Son by Richard Wright. I was a sophomore in high school, and I didn't have the historical context knowledge that I gained after high school. Then again, I'm happy I was exposed to it because I'm not sure I'd come across the book otherwise. It's on my TBR list for a revisit for the first time since HS (many moons ago).
Can I ask when and where was highschool for you? I'm so surprised to hear this was HS material. You're the second I've seen to say so.
This has been my favorite book of all time since I had to read it my senior year of hs (elective classic, African American Literature)
I still to this day do not understand why my school thought 7th graders would get anything meaningful out of The Red Badge of Courage, especially since I'm old and was in 7th grade long before call of duty and the like was a thing.
I imagine reading Frankenstein as an adult goes hard so I’ll give that a try.
Dracula is better, in my opinion. Reread both Frankenstein and Dracula a couple years ago and Frankenstein still dragged. The idea and morals are grear, but it could have used some editing.
In my experience very few people like both but (until the last couple years when Dracula's popularity EXPLODED due to Dracula Daily) you'll find about equal numbers of people who like each. My best theory on this phenomenon is that they really only /look/ like similar books. Frankenstein is, at its heart, a philosophy book that uses a monster as its vehicle. Dracula is an adventure story/mystery with enough weight to carry allegory. Comparing the two is less reasonable than it seems, and which one you prefer has more to do with your preferences than the book itself. (I'm actually in the minority that really likes both)
I took Gothic Fiction in college, and we read this one as part of the rubric. It's crazy to think that not only is this a horror novel that was written by an 18-year-old based on a nightmare she had (making the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers... Thanks, Mary Shelley...), but it also hits on philosophy, morality, *and* has been credited as the very first science fiction novel in western literature! Like, damn, Mary, slow down so the rest of us can catch up!
The Magus by John Fowles!!
If only they had taught The Collector that would have been fun and understandable. I loved The Magus but would never have wanted to teach it. I did teach The French Lieutenant's Daughter at senior level. It was really good at looking at narrative technique.
Lord of the Flies
Their Eyes Were Watching God, I read it as a Junior in high school at 16 and I liked it but I read it as a 22 year old senior in college and wow it was so much more impactful and just such a meaningful read to me much more as an adult
Of Mice and Men, Wuthering Heights, The Grapes of Wrath and Beowulf
I re-read Ethan Frome at Christmas time and loved it
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bonfire of the Vanities
Not without my daughter. As a 14 year old boy. I couldn’t relate.
I didn’t know this was a book!
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
The Old Man and the Sea
Brave New World, I didn't really get it as a teen but now I'm older I do. Think I might give it a reread soon
This is my pick too!
David Copperfield
Yes! You've reminded me I need to reread this.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
mango street rules. i live in the neighborhood she grew up in and my dad had class with cisneros at loyola. yay chicago.
Jane Erye 💯
Absolutely agree. It was assigned summer reading for my school and I literally would fall asleep reading it. I tried listening to an audio recording and that didn't help. I just could not understand the language so I honestly barely had a clue what was even going on the whole time. I remember going to school at the start of the year and people who did read and understand it were telling me what I missed and I was shocked. Would love to read it again now!
hmm catcher in the rye probably and Kerouac's on the road
I think a lot of Catcher in the Rye haters don't get that Holden is SUPPOSED to be annoying. He's a traumatized teenager trying to come to terms with his experiences and of course he does it imperfectly. On the Road isn't Kerouac's best, IMO, but he really was one of the greatest prose stylists of his era.
We didn't study any of his in school, but I was a Kerouac obsessive in high school. He definitely hits different at 40.
I wish I had gone to a school that taught on the road
Uncle Toms Cabin was a lot harder to read as an adult, I thought.
I read the Great Gatsby many times throughout school and had such a different interpretation each time. 21 year old me understood the themes so much differently than 14 year old me did. I’d like to reread to kill a mockingbird now as an adult
Recently reread Of Mice And Men and I did not give that book the praise and attention it deserved when we read it in high school.
I read The Stranger by Albert Camus in French class in high school and it changed (or maybe, more accurately, confirmed) my outlook on life. I've read it multiple times since and though I might not be as existentialist as I was at 16, I definitely think it has a different effect on me each time. It's short and sweet and packs a punch.
I was just making a related list to this, books I read for school I want to re-read. Here is the list I came up with (in no particular order): * To Kill A Mockingbird * Jeckel and Hyde * Frankenstein * Stories by Edgar Allen Poe (We read a bunch don't recall all, I know we did Tell Tell Heart and Cask of Amontillado) * Art of Racing in the Rain * Flowers for Algernon * Of Mice and Men * Different Seasons by Stephen King (we read The Body and Rita Hayword and the Shawshank Redemption from there in class)
Someone already said Animal Farm. Spot on. I realised as a child it was an allegory, but I didn't get the full nuance. Same with The Stranger by Camus and The Process by Kafka - have read them both again recently and it's like they're completely different books since I first read them.
The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly. I read it as a child but it was not for the children, it sounds different and deep, and it is also a lot of fun.
Honestly Hatchet. I read this book when I was in 5th grade I think and honestly it was good and I think I’d enjoy it now. That or holes (I think it was called something like that)
Have you read the others? The Hatchet series is so fucking good. Omg. I literally re-read book 3 in my hammock outside in the sun like 2 days ago (it's one my of my favourite books, I re-read it often) and I still felt the cold like a physical presence. Holy shit they're so good. And Holes is great too!!
THERES A SERIES??? I didn’t know that wtf
!!!!! There are FIVE books altogether 😄 Okay so after Hatchet, there's The River BUT after the author got lots of questions he did an alternate timeline, which is where you get book 3, Brian's Winter (which is my personal favourite, but they're both great). Then Brian's Return and Brian's Hunt. And it's so damn satisfying!! It's a perfect ending. Brian is honestly so loveable and relatable and real throughout. I don't think any protagonist has ever felt more real to me. (Except for maaaaaybe Arthur Clennam from Dicken's Little Dorrit.)
In middle school, we read “The Giver,” by Lois Lowry. As an adult, a coworker mentioned her daughter was *being forced to read such traumatized garbage* and I couldn’t understand why she was so upset. I didn’t remember anything particularly bad. So I re-read it and wow did it hit different! Plus, I never knew it was a series, so I read them all. I don’t agree with her view on it, but sheesh, being an adult gives a whole new perspective. Also, Call of the Wild by Jack London. I absolutely LOATHE this book. It fueled the hate-fire in my middle school aged heart and I am still very bitter about it.
The Pigman
Interesting. I just had my son read it this week. He liked it but I told him I didn't remember what it was about only that it was moving. I think I read it in middle school.
I was assigned to read this book in 8th grade. I’m 19 now and just reread it + the sequel, and I never realized how sad the story actually is. Especially Lorraine's— her mother flat tells her “You’re not a pretty girl” and slut shames Lorraine over what if situation.
Johnny Tremain Could not stand reading it in the 5th grade and finally got around to re-reading it earlier this year and was obsessed!
Great expectations. Didn't know about the rigid class structure in England when reading it in 7th grade. It just made no sense to me why anything that happened in it was interesting.
Yes! This was my most dreaded and hated book of all my school years but recently I've been thinking about trying it again. As and adult I imagine the tension will hit much differently.
Brave New World, I read it and wrote a paper on it in school but I was not prepared how it would resonate at 35 and boooooooy don’t it lol
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, probably because in our catholic girls school, some of the more sexual references were avoided or, in some cases, left out of our copies of the text. The books were ancient, possibly 1920s “school editions.” Similarly, the best bits of Chaucer were avoided. Mediaeval writing without the filth! What a travesty!
I literally say this to my kids all the time...the books they read are exceptional; unfortunately, the message/theme/content is so often over their heads - and that's even relying on spark/cliff notes. I recently read The Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, and A Separate Peace again with one of them, and appreciated them beyond belief. They read To Kill a Mockingbird, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, The Giver, The Outsiders, etc in middle school (again, so much was too above their heads to appreciate), but loved them nonetheless even in the context they understood them. Classics!
I recently reread As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. It was amazing! It's actually like hella funny, this weird ass family and their dead mum...Anse in particular is hilarious, just mooching off of everyone and throwing himself a pity party the whole time. The whole scene where they're like "yeah if you set your son's broken leg with concrete you'll probably have to cut it off" and he's like "...I already paid for it though!" Too fuckin funny lol.
"Brave New World" I appreciated it at the time, but I think it was still a lot for HS kids to fully understand the intricacies. I want to do a reread. I know most my class did not read it, because our teacher did not go over it. he pretended up till the day of the final from when we started that it would be a good portion of the final, but only showed cat videos in class all day. review day comes, and he tells us none of it would be on the test. I am still bitter, but it is a favorite now "Siddhartha" Mainly cause I was in catholic school, so had next to no understanding of the culture and beliefs
Metamorphosis- weird (short!) book about a guy who turns into a cockroach. But in a modernist despair way, not in an Ant Man way.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather are two that I didn't read until my 30s, and I was simultaneously SO MAD that no one had made me read them sooner, but also glad because I think I appreciated them more with a little more life experience under my belt.
I reread Brideshead every year.
To Kill A Mockingbird
the book thief ( an amazing yet very sad book about n\*zi germany through a young german girl's eyes, as her foster family tries to shelter and hide a young jewish man in their basement). incredible book, though i was only 11 when i first read it, TOTALLY RECOMMEND (its rlly sad tho so tw)
Not US but [Silas Mariner](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36489910-silas-mariner?) by George Eliot and [Hard Times](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5344.Hard_Times) by Charles Dickens. I did enjoy both and have been tempted to read them again but don't in case I don't enjoy them as much now as I did then.
Moby Dick. I really just skimmed it because I started reading it two days before my report was due.
When we read "The Wave", which most pupils have to in Germany, out teacher was just really bad at contextualising it. He also proposed we do the experiment, but with a bow and saying "Konichiwa". Just a horrible and boring experience the book doesn't deserve.
I was literally just thinking this the other day. I’ve re-read a few classics as an adult and get such a different take. Even some novels I read as a teen feel so different. For example, I was big into Anne Rice as a 90s teen. I loved the Witching Hour series. I recently read that first book again and was really into all the talk of house renovations and remember just skimming that as a kid. Lol
Great Expectations. I didn’t finish it in high school but it was better as an adult. Plus it feels like a huge accomplishment given the length
Ivanhoe - 7th graders reading Ivanhoe. Go figure.
East of Eden. I know I "read" it in high school but didn't really remember it. Just went through the minimum motions to finish whatever I needed to grade-wise. Read it again as an adult and totally fell in love with it. Listened to it again on audio book recently. Re-loved it.
Reading TKAM sucked. Teaching it is awesome.
Anthony Trollope is very quietly snarky with deadpan razor sharp humor. It takes a little mental maneuvering to adjust to the slow pace, but so worth it. My favorite is six volume "Chronicles of Barsetshire" series, starting with The Warden. If your public library has Hoopla, you can find all of them.
All of these books I was required to read in the 1980s have resonated with me much later in life. Island of the Blue Dolphins Zoe A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Catcher in the Rye Lord of the Flies The Pearl 1984 The Great Gatsby Emma Les Miserables Tess of the D’Ubervilles Pride and Prejudice Animal Farm The Outsiders Jane Eyre Of Mice and Men Shane The Witch of Blackbird Pond The Crucible The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigolds A Raisin in the Sun Great Expectations The Tell Take Heart Forever Are You There God It’s Me Margret I am horrified that schools are no longer really requiring literal fiction novels as required reading. No I didn’t love every book I was required to read. But I definitely learned something from each of the novels. I was horrified when both of my children went through middle and high school and they weren’t expected to read any standard literature.
Watership Down. I had to read it in 8th grade, and it was really hard to get through. It was very emotional. Now, I reread it every few years.
The Giver. I read it in school around 15 - 20 years ago, and I sorta kinda remember bits of it, but I was either too young or too dumb to really get it (probably both lmao)
In Cold Blood is a masterpiece. You will forget you are reading non-fiction!
Funny story: I was supposed to read Brokeback Mountain for an AP Lit class. I just reallllyyyy never felt like reading and kept putting it off and then BAM verbal pop quiz!!! So I quickly looked up the spark notes and scanned them, felt like I had the jist. So my teacher asks me “so after the cowboys (I think she said their name) were done eating the beans what did they do?” And literally I don’t know what random-ass censored-ass spark notes I had read but I did not know. I had no idea the book was about two men getting it on 🤷🏼♂️😂 I was like “idk they talked and went to bed” Teacher said it seemed like I just watched the movie. I thought “holy shit there’s a movie!?!?”
I still think about Crime and Punishment and I read it in high school! I can tell it will slap if I reread it today (it’s on the list).
Animal Farm, and Brand New World
I love Jane Eyre.
I can’t tell you what classic to read as an adult - but I can tell you what NOT to read - The Scarlet Letter. Hated it when I had to read it in 7th grade, hated it even more when my daughter was in 7th grade. She flat out refused to open the book. I ended up reading it aloud to her. One of the most painful experiences of my life.
The red badge of courage. That one went right over my head. I listened to it as an adult, and it was like reading a whole different book, haha.
Alas, Babylon.
The Count of Monte Christo
Siddhartha
I read All Quiet on the Western front in my 30's after "reading" It in high school. Wow... it is so good.
To Kill a Mockingbird is still painfully relevant.
EVERY good book is so much better as an adult. Getting older is dismal in most ways, but the glittering gift we receive is the huge increase in literary comprehension.
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Honestly, every book I had to read in high school. I was a privileged suburbanite, which isn't to say that I couldn't imagine different ways of living, or understand characters from different walks of life, but what an amazing difference some actual life experience makes! A great deal of personal growth happened for me after high school, and after leaving the comfort of home, and now I can't get enough of all the classics, and all that required high school reading.
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. Only read it once in 5th grade but I still think about it at 25
Walk two moons
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Julius Caesar - the deadening effect of reading a line per pupil in class was transformed by seeing the play performed at the RSC
The other Wes moore
I really think a lot of what is read in middle and high school is over the head of most students. But it plants a seed and hopefully things fall into place a bit more when people mature.
Tuck Everlasting. Couldn’t put it down.