Task #24: An assigned book you hated (or never finished)

[Book Riot]

Use this space to discuss books you're reading or that might fit the 24th Read Harder task.

[Jessica]

The Great Gatsby.

I didn't even have to think about this. I saw the task and immediately thought of Gatsby and how much I hated it when it was assigned in high school. Of course, I don't *want* to read it, but I suppose that's the point of this task.

[Jordan]

Choices, choices.

I hated Of Mice and Men and The Old Man and the Sea. Or we never finished The Canterbury Tales, we just read parts of it, same with Beowulf, both of which I enjoyed what we read of them. What I choose will depend on how much of a glutton for punishment I'm feeling when I get to this one.

[Rayne]

The first book I thought of was Of Mice and Men as well. I also never finished Pride and Prejudice when I was in school. And The Diary of a Young Girl gave me nightmares as a kid so I quit reading it.

[Karen]

If Shakespeare plays count I will pick one of the plays I had to read for a college class I really didn't like any that we read so I would have lots of choices.

[Kate]

My reading time is too limited to force myself to read something I already have a negative perception of. So instead of going with something I hated, I'm going with something I didn't finish. If book club "assignments" count, I'm going to go with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente. I never even cracked the spine!

If that doesn't count, I'll go with The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I got about two-thirds of the way through it before realizing I'd never finish it in time and going with something shorter for the class deadline. I was enjoying it, though!

[D.L.]

Kate wrote: "My reading time is too limited to force myself to read something I already have a negative perception of. So instead of going with something I hated, I'm going with something I didn't finish. If bo..."

That's actually a good idea. I change my mind. I don't want to read a book I hated; life is too short. I *was* supposed to read A Tale of Two Cities in English class but never did so I'll give that a try. Plus one of my groups is reading it in February so win-win.

[Kelli]

I remember this so clearly. I was in a for-credit book club at my university and I burned out before I read Isaac Asimov's Foundation #1 or Teaching a Stone to Talk (Annie Dillard). So one of these two.

[Rachel]

This is a tough one for me. I can't think of any assigned book that I never finished. The only one I truly hated was In the Skin of a Lion, and I don't really want to try that one again.

[Sarah]

This one is looking like Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh, or Island of the Blue Dolphins for me.

[Teresa]

I'll finish The Long Ships and/or The Living Blood. I enjoyed both, they're just really long.

[Cassandra]

As soon as I saw this I instantly knew it would be The Giver. I hated it so much when it was assigned to me in school that I stopped reading it and somehow got my m to write my book report on it.

[Michelle]

I'm thinking I might retry One Hundred Years of Solitude. I hated it, but that was years ago in high school and I know I didn't understand it. But then again, I still don't like magical realism, so...

[Chandie]

The only assigned reading I truly hated was Catcher in the Rye and I reread it a few years ago and still hated it.
The only one I DNFd was Moby Dick. Ugh.

[Philip]

I think I will read something that I just pretended to read and go with The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.

[Nina]

Lord of the Flies. No question. I utterly despised it when I had to read it in 9th grade. Perhaps it will work better for middle-aged me.

[Brandyn]

I have tons of choices because high school assigned reading did not speak too me, but I’m really hesitant to commit more time to something I already hated. I’m going to give A Prayer for Owen Meany another shot because I remember my best friend loved it, but if that doesn’t work, my book club read The Glass Castle and I didn’t get very far so that will be my backup.

[Theresa]

The Stranger. I hated & DNF'd it in high school, but that's probably because I didn't understand it. It's only 123 pages, so I don't have to suffer too badly if I still hate it.

[Bonnie G.]

Pornography: Men Possessing Women. "hated" does not even begin to explain how I felt about this one.

[Leslie (updates on SG)]

I have been waiting eagerly for a category like this one because there are a number of books that I hated in school, but loved reading as an adult. I'm looking at you, The Old Man and the Sea and Of Mice and Men. So for this category, I might go for another Steinbeck novella like The Pearl or The Red Pony. These books gave me a very poor opinion of Steinbeck until I read East of Eden, which I read for fun in high school, but I guess it's too long and risque to assign.

[Allie]

I've got a looooot of options here. I almost never finished assigned books in school. I'm thinking of finally finishing Hamlet or Fahrenheit 451.

The only books I remember truly hating were Frankenstein and The Scarlet Letter. I'm not that eager to revisit either of them.

[Erica]

Kate wrote: "My reading time is too limited to force myself to read something I already have a negative perception of. So instead of going with something I hated, I'm going with something I didn't finish. If bo..."

I say reread and finish Grapes of Wrath! I was the only person in my class that enjoyed it, but it's definitely worth revisiting, especially since you were enjoying it.

[Lauconn]

Emma, which I hated so much in high school that it put me off Jane Austen for years. I've since read and loved Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, so maybe I'll give this another go. The other 2 options for me are Crime and Punishment and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I think Crime and Punishment might be my best bet for one I'd appreciate more at 40 than at 16!

[Lila]

Going back to my college english course... The Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad) started but never finished.

[Raye of the Dead]

I have no idea what to pick for this. I've never been assigned a book. Should I just pick a book that someone else mentioned?

[Andrea]

High school and college were a long time ago.... I wasn't the type to not finish a book and the only one I truly hated was Dicken's Hard Times. I will not re-read that even for a challenge so I am playing a little loose with what "assigned" means. A friend gave me Lud-in-the-Mist a few years ago and I have never finished it. I just couldn't get into it then, so I will try again.

[Jenica]

I've been telling myself for years to re-read Jane Eyre, which I had read before it was assigned and re-read when it was assigned my freshman year of high school. I really didn't like the book, but I know so many of my friends love it.

I could also do Wuthering Heights, which I have tried multiple times to read, both before and after it was assigned to me. Or Jude the Obscure, which I did not finish and have no desire to ever try again. I hated The Scarlet Letter and The Old Man in the Sea with intense passion that has not faded with time. Honestly, the amount of books I enjoyed reading for school is so small in comparison to the ones I hated, it's quite sad.

[Elizabeth]

I'm going to see if my German is still good enough to make it through Die Leiden des jungen Werther. Otherwise, I'm thinking of reading The Trial. I'm pretty sure I read part of it in German once upon a time, but I know I never made it through when I was supposed to read it for an English class.

[Jobiska (Cindy)]

Andrea wrote: "High school and college were a long time ago.... I wasn't the type to not finish a book and the only one I truly hated was Dicken's Hard Times. I will not re-read that even for a challenge so I am ..."

I have this problem too--both the long time ago and the not-finish part. I know I skimmed a lot of the end of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," but that's not quite the same as not finishing. I think I also skimmed Le Rouge et Le Noir, and I know I didn't finish Du Cote de Chez Swann (sorry no accent marks) (didn't like that French professor), but I am just not going to read Proust, especially not in French, not when I have so many other books waiting.

What I'm thinking of doing is this: I avoided a basic American Lit course in HS because I didn't like that teacher so I took other courses ("Frontier Lit," for example) that filled that requirement. So there are several basic classics I never read at all, not because I didn't like them, but I didn't get a chance bc I didn't like the teacher. So I'll probably do one of those. Not sure what was on the reading list, but I'm thinking stuff along the lines of Hemingway, Faulkner, etc.

I always love how almost everyone doing the Challenges is so careful to try to find out if something fits the rules. We're all such good people! ;-)

[Rachel]

This one is going to be hard... I was homeschooled as a kid, so I read whatever I wanted, and then in the single year I attended high school, I'd read not only all of my class' material but the other English class' books too, and I'd not only finished Beowulf but read it multiple times in different translations while I was waiting for my classmates to finish it. (BTW, if anyone is thinking of reading Beowulf, go for the Seamus Heaney translation, it's immensely better than whatever random translation my school picked up to distribute to the students)

[Riah]

I categorically refuse to reread something I hated the first time. (The one time I did this, when I was cast in a college production of Jane Eyre, I hated it even more the second time.) So, I'm going with something I was assigned but didn't finish. I read pretty much all the books I was supposed to as a kid and in college/grad school, but for some reason when I was homeschooling I started but never finished Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, so I'll finally finish it for this!

[Riah]

Rachel wrote: "This one is going to be hard... I was homeschooled as a kid, so I read whatever I wanted, and then in the single year I attended high school, I'd read not only all of my class' material but the oth..."

I was homeschooled too, for my last five years before college and it definitely made it harder to think of something for this challenge! I can only remember one book I was supposed to read as a homeschooler that I didn't finish.

[Kate]

Has there been a call from BookRiots staff anywhere about whether book club "assignments" count for this? Trying to make the call about what I'm going to read and knowing if this is a go or not will likely be the tie-breaker for me!

[Teresa]

Kate, I'm reading a book I assigned myself last year but never finished.

[Miriam]

Theresa, thanks for your comment. I am going to go with your idea, too! I do not want to finish any book I didn't finish for good reasons. I rarely do that and when I do, I don't like it at all. Plus, I think there is only one I was assigned and didn't finish, Dickens' Bleak House and no, I do not want to revisit that one.

[Megan]

This is a hard task for me since (a) I can't remember any of the books I read in school except for The Great Gatsby, Siddharta, and Brave New World and (b) I probably finished them anyway. I read TGG last year, so I'll probably go with Brave New World.

[Amber]

I finished and liked all of my assigned reading as well, but I think I'll either read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own because we only read excerpts in class or I'll read The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré because it's assigned reading for a class I wanted to take next semester, only I opted for another course instead, but I still really want to read the book. Do you think that would count?

[Michelle]

It was rare for me not to finish a reading assignment for school, but I guess I'll finally have to read Out of Africa... It was assigned reading in uni and I absolutely hated it. I was never able to force myself through it.

[Mona]

I remember reading 1984 in school but not liking it. I think I would today so that's going to be my book for this task. :)

[Jill]

Please don’t make me read Moby Dick!

[Shar]

I'm going with a book from a previous book club I never finished.

Friday Night Knitting Club

[Kate]

I’m a desperate goody two shoes so I’ve never not finished a book :/ there is only one assigned novel I’ve ever really hated which is Z for Zachariah - I’m going to attempt it again and hope there’s something worthwhile I wasn’t getting the first time!

[Katie]

My least favorite book from high school was Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. I read it my freshman year and I thought it was a whole lot of pretentious, pseudo-philosophical bullshit. Honestly, I don't feel like my opinion is going to change much on a reread but I might as well give it a chance, eh?

[Tori]

I loathed Their Eyes Were Watching God deeply in my junior year lit class, but I do think I was maybe too busy worrying about the super fit senior bloke in the front row to properly read it... Trying again as a 30something!

[Chickadee]

Karen wrote: "If Shakespeare plays count I will pick one of the plays I had to read for a college class I really didn't like any that we read so I would have lots of choices."

Me too! I'm reading Romeo and Juliet.

[Betty]

20 years later, I am still ashamed I didn't finish Edith Hamilton's Mythology and I basically made stuff up on the test. I think this needs to be my pick for this category. I honestly can't recall any other assigned books I didn't finish!

[Rayne]

Assigned book. Does that mean from our school days? Or can we interpret that as from a book club or some such?

[Rayne]

Kate wrote: "Has there been a call from BookRiots staff anywhere about whether book club "assignments" count for this? Trying to make the call about what I'm going to read and knowing if this is a go or not wil..."

That is my question as well. Because I can think of a book-club "assignment" that I never finished and would love to try again.

[Betty]

Brooklyn wrote: "Kate wrote: "Has there been a call from BookRiots staff anywhere about whether book club "assignments" count for this? Trying to make the call about what I'm going to read and knowing if this is a ..."

I would think yeah- any book you were "supposed" to read at some point for whatever reason, but hated or didn't finish...

[Gerri]

Chrandra wrote: "The only assigned reading I truly hated was Catcher in the Rye and I reread it a few years ago and still hated it.
The only one I DNFd was Moby Dick. Ugh."

I bought this book because of all the references to it and I had never read it. I remember it being boring and I don't think I finished it so perhaps I will pick it up again for this challenge.