5 Best and Worst Books I Read For School

I thought I'd do something a little different today. As someone who was in school most of my life, I had to read a lot of books for school. For simplicity's sake, I'm only including books from English classes in high school and college.

It should be noted that I went to a very liberal high school, where they put an emphasis on reading contemporary works by and/or about women and POC. They had this concept of windows and mirrors, where you read some things that provided a window into someone else's worldview, and some that you could see yourself in. This will probably skew my results, including titles that most schools wouldn't normally read on both lists.

The 5 WORST Books I Read For School
1. Ceremony by Leslie Marmo Silko. This is the only book I've ever read that I rooted for all the characters to die in a car crash to end the misery of reading it. Would have made sense too, since they spent the majority of the book driving drunk.
2. The Stranger by Albert Camus. This book is everything you hated about Catcher in the Rye, but worse, because the whiney brat is a grown-ass man. And what is up with white dudes and their fascination with prostitutes?
3. Utopia by Thomas More. Don't let the title fool you- it's not a novel about a dystopia disguised as a utopia. It's a novel-length description of More's vision of a utopia. Which, of course, is only utopian for white cishet males.
4. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. Bradbury's a great writer, but this book was his stinker. To be honest, I never bothered finishing the damn thing. And considering I was the only one in my class to guess what happened on the last page correctly, I don't think anyone else did either.
5. The Odyssey by Homer. This epic is epically boring! So. Damn. Repetitive. We get it, dawn rose with her rose red fingers and you have a thing for braids! Meant to be heard, not read. Shouldn't have bothered writing it down.



The 5 BEST Books I Read For School
1. In The Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alverez. I thought this book was beautifully written, and the way it wove history and fiction together was amazing. I especially loved how Spanish was integrated into the text. I hardly speak a word, but even I could understand.
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Yes, the same guy that wrote The Kite Runner. The book was told through the perspectives of multiple women, who end up married to the same man. I enjoyed learning about another culture through the narrative.
3. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. This is another one where I got to learn about another culture while enjoying a good story. There was some disturbing imagery about foot binding, but that was really my only qualm with the text.
4. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare. You had to know one of his works was going to show up somewhere. To be honest, my teacher let us vote on which of Shakespeare's works we were going to read. I wanted Taming of the Shrew, but Midsummer is good too.
5. The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. I don't really remember much about the book, save a scene where the Taylor decides that Turtle is hers now, and drives off. I do, however, remember liking it and it being short, a relief right after finishing The Odyssey.


I'm curious. Did you read any of these? If so, are they on the right list? What would be on yours?