As a person who loves fantasy novels, high school was a pain because you almost never read that kind of stuff.

Anyway, one book I liked a bit more than the other junk I had to dredge through in high school was The Cather in the Rye, because even though Holden Caulfield was kind of a loser, seeing the story from his point of view and reading his cynical and sarcastic commentary through every step of the way made it a lot more enjoyable of a read than any of the overrated stuff by Shakespeare. His way of describing things was funny and how he hated things like the word "grand" and how typical it was for people to eat steak on Sunday just because. It's been YEARS since I've read the book, but I remember all these hilarious little details. I also found it funny how he described the smell of the taxi cab he was riding in as "someone tossed their cookies." It's these little, funny bits that totally sold the story for me and it was one book I actually enjoyed reading as opposed to just skimming through it to get it over with.

As far of a high school assignment, the class had to act out parts of the story, and I was the old English teacher. There was one guy in the class who played the role of Holden PERFECTLY even though I couldn't stand that guy. Good times.