Everyone has fond and not-so-fond memories of the books that have read in English class throughout the years. Whether it might have been something that you would read again and again, or that one book that you knew would be bad as soon as you finished the first chapter, there are hits and misses for everyone. Though we are well into the third quarter, let us take a look back on some of those hits and misses of the first semester’s English books.

Fair warning: as a freshman, I am not the most reliable source on the best books in older classes.

Freshmen last semester read Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, Anthem by Ayn Rand, and either Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie or The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.The quality of Lahiri’s writing in Interpreter of Maladies shows that she deserves her 2000 Pulitzer Prize for the short story collection, and even though I would not have originally been excited by most of the plot points, Lahiri managed to make me empathize with the characters and be immersed in the stories. Another of our books, Anthem, might have been something that I would select for myself because of the great plot line. However, I felt as if the ending could have been better because it was so easy for the main character, Equality, to escape his society. Rand should have created a rival with equal smarts to try to outwit him – every Sherlock needs a Moriarty. The last one was Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie. My class read this novel instead of The Kite Runner, which many other freshman classes read. I really liked learning about the Chinese Cultural Revolution and how kids our age were forced to live an entirely different way of life.

Sophomores read J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye and William Golding’s  Lord of the Flies. Catcher in the Rye seemed to be rather hit-or-miss; the sophomores who I talked to either loved it or hated it. Personally, I think Lord of the Flies sounds good, sort of like the Hunger Games, but a bit more morbid. Sophomore Victoria Alfred-Levow explained that the novel was about brutal events happening among a group of British boys on an island, and told me, “Lord of the Flies is definitely dark. It was kind of disgusting to read about some of the bloody things they did, but it was also cool to think about good and evil and human nature. Catcher in the Rye – I don’t know if I loved it or hated it. The narrator, Holden, is pretty annoying sometimes.”

For juniors, the clear winner seemed to be Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. (If you liked Fahrenheit 451, make sure to check out S is for Space, a short story collection by the same author.) Harriton junior Ryan Chang commented, “I liked Fahrenheit 451 better than The Things They Carried [by Tim O’Brien] because it had themes which appealed to me more. Fahrenheit 451 describes a corrupt dystopian government, while Things They Carried describes veteran war heroes. But in terms of personal taste, Fahrenheit 451 was more interesting.”

Finally, the seniors seemed to enjoy Hamlet the most. With its gripping plotline, inspiring monologues, and tragic events, what was not to like? Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë were also mentioned. Senior Martha Wolnicki explained, “Wuthering Heights is written in a very complicated style since it is supposed to create a distance between what is happening in the novel and what the reader is reading. This is a cool stylistic device that Emily Brontë uses, but it makes it hard for the modern reader to understand.”

As I saw, there was a range of opinions concerning the recent books read in English class. If you did not like anything this past semester, hopefully luck will come your way this coming semester! You just might discover your next favorite book in Things Fall Apart or To Kill a Mockingbird.