At the hashtag #worstbookever, you’ll learn some things. Huck Finn isn’t well-liked. The works of Homer and Shakespeare are scorned. That’s because most of these virulent tweets are lobbed from American high schoolers and middle schoolers continuing the ongoing battle waged between teenagers and required reading. The hatred of a new generation is a lovely, comforting thing; isn’t it nice to know that some things will never change? There’s something wonderful about knowing a teenager out there is using Spark Notes on A Doll’s House, just like you did when you were in high school.
dear tale of two cities, please go die in a damn hole. love always, sam (:
#soconfused#worstbookever
the metamorphosis makes me want to jump off a building.
#worstbookever
finished reading slaughterhouse five and i couldn’t be happier
#worstbookever
I might just burn “Heart of Darkness” after my ap english exam.
#worstbookever#sleepstealer
I hate Macbeth it is so stupid
#worstbookever
The Sun Also Rises should be renamed “Why the suicide rate of teens in America is so high”
#worstbookever#help
YESSSS DONE CATCHER IN THE RYEE
#worstbookever
need to get the awakening out of my life
#worstbookever
Reading Hamlet makes me wanna shoot myself.
#worstbookever
The old man and the sea,
#worstbookever uuuggghhhh
Huck Finn can kiss it
#worstbookever
#HuckFinn? F You.#worstbookever
thank god for sparknotes
#readingthecrucible#worstbookever
I gave up on reading the Lord of the Flies…
#complicatedbook#worstbookever
heart of darkness please die
#worstbookever#whatsisgoingon?
I cry when I read the book Dorian Gray
#worstbookever#shootmenow
190 pages of Scarlett Letter to read by tomorrow
#WorstBookEver
why is black swan green an award winning book?
#worstbookever
By far the the worst book I was assigned to read and made it through was “A Christmas Carol” , thankfully it is fairly short.
I hated most of these books, too…until later (much later). Then, as a middle-aged grad student in philosophy, I found it pathetic to attend dissertation proposals in the humanities (and social sciences). An enthusiastic candidate would propose a topic that a knowledge of the classics would have steered them elsewhere…to something new, for instance. That is, “Nice thought, but Aristotle (or Eliot; substitute your author or critic of choice) has already dealt with that concept in considerable detail. Why not plow more fertile ground?”
I agree with Tracy. I once asked an English teacher, ‘Who picks these titles, and why do they never change?’ I mean, they have to read the same books I read in the early 1970′s for cry-eye. It’s a shame that kids who are already predisposed to not read have what little desire they possess for the written word killed off by musty old fiction
I love to read and I agree that most of the books in so-called “canon” are unreadable. Who decides what is a “classic”.
When I was young I thought that most of the classics were written for the express purpose of torturing school children
Okay I don’t really think you’re learning much from this article except that kids hate to do their reading assignments. Most of the books I’ve read from this list I liked quite a bit, with the exception of The Old Man and the Sea and The Scarlet Letter. If I was the writer of this article, I would have replaced “Hilarious Tweets” with “Annoying Tweets.” But then I love literature, and now that I’m a full-time chemist, I miss taking lit classes! Oh and I NEVER used sparknotes in high school, Mr. Habash. But thanks for giving me something to complain about to one of my friends who’s a high school lit teacher!
There are a lot of classics that I despise. But I’m glad I had classics assigned; otherwise, I’d have never read Heart of Darkness, Scarlet Letter, or any of Jane Austen’s work. Loved all of those.
Why not assign–along with the classics, if so inclined–some of the many beautifully-written current young-adult novels that teenagers like to read, and that address issues important to them?
My teen sons would so agree with all these comments…Ironically, I work in the book publishing industry!