Poll

The Great Gatsby because it was a character focused novel with characters I hated. Don't get me wrong, I love anti-heroes and flawed characters far more than perfect ones. But I couldn't stand most of these characters. Nick was a personality-less stand in for the reader, Tom was a racist hypocrite, Daisy was selfish and materialistic, and Gatsby was annoyingly naive.

Anything Shakespeare

Bowling Alone

1984 & ALL Shakespeare. yuck !

How could you not love "The Outsiders"?!?!!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!?

I chose the Scarlet Letter but Great Expectations was also brutal >.<

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. One of the most difficult times of my life reading-wise.

I just started a facebook group for YA readers to discuss the books they love and love to hate. If anyone is interested, drop me a message and I'll add you! :) Hoping to create a huge family of readers, so we have a place to discuss our favorite books. Don't miss out. ^_^

About A Boy by Nick Hornby. Still possibly my least favorite book I've ever read. Although that was off an independent reading list.

Of the absolute required readings, Milton's Paradise Lost.

Of Mice and Men was the first book I really hated, I had Kafka's Metamorphosis and Camus' The Outsider inflicted on me as well and I hated both of those even more but Of Mice and Men wins it because I read it first, I didn't even know I could dislike a book that much until I read it.

None of those were required in my high school. My favorite was Dracula.

The Trial by Franz Kafka.... ugh I hated it!
I know there are many people who worship this book, but I just think it's a waste of time!

Great Expectations

A Tale of Two Cities

I too enjoyed reading in high school. For the most part. Required readings did take the joy out of it sometimes.
I wholeheartedly agree with the current #1 pick. The Scarlet Letter made me want to pull out my hair, one follicle by painful follicle, than finish that book. Never did make it to the end. Did they hang her? Oh wait, I just remembered that I don't care.

Easily Animal Farm. The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby weren't that bad!

Any book by Dickens ... god!!!

Madame Bovary!

ALL of those listed, EXCEPT for 'To Kill A Mockingbird' were books I either disliked or was disinterested in reading.

Othello. ...yawn...

Lela wrote: "Madame Bovary!"

So do I.

A Jounral of the Plague Year - Defoe
followed by
Robinson Crusoe - Defoe
followed by
Madam Bovary

JULIUS CAESAR by Shakespeare; we had to re-write it in our own words! Talk about laborious and time-intensive!!

Anything by Charles Dickens. Things Fall Apart.

Alas, Babylon

Anne Frank

Okay so this list has all of my FAVORITE school reads on it... That's rather upsetting.

However, my freshman year I had to read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. I was ready to ram a pencil through my eye by the time I was done with that book. Oh god, never again. I've disliked several books I've had to read for class over the years, but I have never hated anything as much as Siddhartha.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce. Pointless, pretentious drivel.

"Honorable" mentions to Catcher in the Rye, The Pearl (Had to read it twice.), and Ethan Frome (After having a second book by her inflicted on me in college, I swear the only person who hates Edith Wharton's characters more than me, is Edith Wharton.)

Picture of Dorian Grey

Definitely either Frankenstein (Dr. Frankenstein is a whiny, arrogant, selfish little man), or Don Quixote. I enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities, however!

Fahrenheit 451

Slaughterhouse-Five

Dreamspeaker by Cam Hubert...ughhh, this book annoyed me to the point where I barely read it at all.

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Gah! That was horrible! I felt like like shooting myself throughout the entire play.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison... Terrible.

Tom Sawyer, never reading it again.

Sadly, Animal Farm was the only one I enjoyed.

I despised my copy of "Candide" by Voltaire... I am still traumatized by the ILLUSTRATIONS included in it... OMFG shoot me nooooow! I will run the opposite way etiquette be DAMNED if I ever see that book again!!!

Example pic (one of MANY I had to SEE as I read the ATROCIOUS horrifying gruesome book): http://d2tq98mqfjyz2l.cloudfront.net/...

And that one ^ is not NEARLY as horrifying as some of the other illustrations I've seen in my copy... *DEAD and scarred FOREVER -twitching in horror-*

First World War poetry by the likes of Sassoon and Owen was pretty dire. The ones that weren't too dull to comprehend depressed me instead. Never again.

[Edit: spelling]

Romeo And Juliet

The The Odyssey is an awful book, I wanted to die while reading it

the old man and the sea ):

McTeague by Frank Norris. Ugly, horrible, and depressing.

The Communist Manifesto. Do you know how many times I had to read that in college? I think every history class I took required it... and I was history major. And Karl Marx: His Life and Environment by Isaiah Berlin. It's less than 300 pages but I thought I would die of old age before I finished. I hated it. Also, anything by John Stewart Mill. The man does not know how to use a period.

I chose Catcher in the Rye for my high school choice, because at the time I hated it (that was 30 years ago!); I read it more recently and tolerated it. Another one I hated in high school was The Grapes of Wrath but I liked it better when I was older.
My least favorite college read was The Sun Also Rises which ended up being required for two different lit classes I took. Bleh!

Marley wrote: "All these books are actually GOOD. Try reading them again as adults. Really. Actually reading Catcher in the Rye as an adult would probably suck...but as a teenager it's great. I'll even take m..."

I agree - many of these can be much better appreciated as an adult.

P.S. I love A Tale of Two Cities, and how could ANYONE hate To Kill a Mockingbird?? There's just no accounting for taste! :)

Things Fall Apart

although Heart of Darkness was a close second.

MOBY DICK. Twice in college. 40 pages smack dab in the middle on the history of whaling ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

Great Expectations

Middlemarch Took me ages.