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Top 12 Best English Class Reads

The best that high school English classes have to offer.

Allison Richmond
Sep 12, 2016
Grand Canyon UniversityEndicott College
23
Top 12 Best English Class Reads
8 Tracks

English class. The place where books are torn apart and reconstructed by opinionated youth and their well-meaning teachers. I love English class and I love to read. It is because of my love of reading that I thrived in my high school English classes and loved the classic novels we dissected each week. In light of this, I compiled a list of my favorite English class reads along with my own brief summaries.

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

I’m standoffish. I love you. Just kidding, I’m married. Wait, now she’s dead. Come back. I love you. I’m blind.

2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

A child’s perspective on racism, equality, hermits, and her father’s unforeseen ability to shoot a gun.

3. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

A teenage mental patient’s stream of consciousness about life and his desire to hold the entire world together and keep childhood innocence alive. Too bad he was crazy.

4. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Gee. European colonization is really rough. Actually, spoiler alert, we’re all savages at heart. A great read about your own innate evil.

5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A love story between an outrageously rich woman and her pining and obsessive old love as told by one of the biggest third wheels in literature. Seriously, give the two some space.

6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

Romanticism at its best. Oh, and Frankenstein is the doctor, not the monster.

7. 1984 by George Orwell

Resistance is futile. Really. Don't even try. All hail Big Brother!

8. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

She did what? Let’s condemn her! And make fun of her! And exclude her from society! And bring shame upon her and her daughter who may or may not be possessed.

9. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

A woman’s quest to perfect her life by ruining her own marriage and poisoning herself with arsenic.

10. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

The adventures of a ginger farm girl and her highly suggestible best friend.

11. Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

London. Paris. French Revolution. Wine. Prison. Knitting. Chivalry. Guillotine.

12. The Iliad by Homer

The story of a guy who doesn’t get his way, so his mom has to fix everything for him while he pouts in his room.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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