In high school, the cool thing to do is complain about your assigned texts. I didn’t always enjoy them, but I usually didn’t complain just because we were assigned Hawthorne, Dickens or Shakespeare. I mean, hey, it might seem a bit archaic (though you’re talking to somebody who grew up with the King James Version of the Bible, so archaic doesn’t always mean unintelligible), but we get to read fiction for school!

Also, I was a lit geek. Aside from being in the International Baccalaureate (read: “AP isn’t AP enough for us”), my extracurriculars included running the literary magazine. Yeeeah. (Hm. This may be a lot closer to “nerd” than “geek.”)

So here are a few of the text I was assigned to read in high school that—don’t tell anyone—I actually enjoyed.

The Scarlet Letter	Ethan Frome	Romeo and Juliet
I liked seeing the strictures of Puritan society in action and reading about a woman who refused to be defined by her past sins, and I loved the tragic irony.	Made me an Edith Wharton fan	‘Nuff said, amiright?
Macbeth	Heart of Darkness	The Great Gatsby
Hey, who doesn’t like to see a jerk get his comeuppance?	I loved the justice of the man who hated the taint of death in a lie lying when the truth was too dark, too dark altogether.	Favorite. Book. Ever. Love the tragedy of selling one’s soul for a dream that’s already long dead.

Hm . . . I’d say the universal theme of tragedy here has something to do with being a melodramatic teenager . . . except that I’m pretty sure my tastes haven’t changed. And yet I’ve never written a tragedy. Strange.

What do you think? Did you enjoy anything you read in high school? What are you reading now? Did you know you could add I, Spy to your Goodreads TBR? Come share what you’re reading!