#don't take this too seriously its a vague culmination of 13 year old me banging my head against a desk

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Talking abt that book poll more here so I don't clog up the tags.

I understand a lot of people don't like F451 and I personally think Bradbury excelled in short fiction more so than longer prose (I think it's really obvious F451 was his first novel) but it just had such a compelling language to me when I read it. It's by no means a perfect book, its pacing can be downright awful and I think Mildred was a bit underplayed, but I loved it more than anything else on that list.

The Scarlet Letter was an absolute SLOG to get through when we read it in class. I hated the way it was taught and group discussions were bland as hell but by the second half of the book it really grew on me. It does a better job of symbolism than Gatsby does (albeit SUPER fucking obvious, my god) and the detail of Chillingworth not holding Pearl's father's actions against her was just really memorable to me. I know classics don't exactly have to be well written by todays standards to be considered classics, but TSL still holds up narratively.

TKAM just never really caught on with me. I think my only real, massive issue with it was that Scout was boring and I didn't like reading her perspective or Lee's style of writing. At all. I don't think I'd ever choose to read it again on my own, unlike the ones above.

I don't like Gatsby for completely petty reasons. It sucked to read and it sucked at doing its job. Of course it can be argued otherwise (and you'd be right, it has its merits) but it just wasn't fulfilling in its enjoyment or in its message.

Anyway, my actual favorites from English class were Ros & Guil Are Dead, Catch-22, Slaughterhouse 5, and No Exit.

And Death of a Salesman also just sucked to read. Fences parallels the narrative DoaS sets up in a more compelling way, to me.