Perfect Book to read if you can't sleep

[Katie]

I am in the 9th grade and I have a solution to your sleeping problems! Read Great Expectations. This book is the perfect book to read if you can't go to sleep. I say this because it WILL put you to sleep. I had to read SparkNotes just so I would understand the plot. Every time I would pick up this book I would fall asleep and wake up a few minutes later. I have pitty for those poor souls that must read this book. I am sorry you have to go through the pain!

[LazarusLong]

I actually quite enjoyed it

[RJbibliophil]

Classics are something you learn to love by reading them. Don't start with the long challenging ones, but start simple and work your way up. Children's literature is a good place to start.

I enjoyed Great Expectations very much.

[Mortis Anarchy]

I loved most of the books I read in the 9th grade. Actually, I think the one book that really bothers me the most because I couldn't finish it was Les Mieserables. It wasn't for school, I was in the 8th grade. The dumb part about it is I could read and enjoy the Iliad by Homer, but I just couldn't do it for that one book!! It is so frustrating!

[farnoosh]

well i have to tell you something ,sometimes you have to read what you like motri!
but other times you have to try out other books too.

[lovely244]

i agree. it was a boring book. but i read the summary online and i kinda liked it. so i actually read the whole book amd it was pretty good

[kari]

I never attempted reading this book at that young of an age. But my husband got this book for me when I was in my mid-twenties. I started reading the beginning of it several times, always putting it down. That went on for some time. Then one day, several years later, it somehow clicked, and I was able to read through the entire thing...and find it to be one of my favorite books I have read. I think reading something like Great Expectations can take you a bit to adjust to, the different way of talking/writing. Don't give up on it! You may one day find it enjoyable...and humorous.

[jessy2792]

This book is one of my all time favorites. But honestly, when I was in the 9th grade I couldn't enjoy classics to save my life! lol
Charles Dickens is a genius and one of my favorite writers next to Jane Austen. You really need to go deep when reading this book. It's really not one of those "hollow literature" books, which I read more than enough of in high school. It's a lot about getting to know the characters and understanding their feelings and the irony of the story. Wait a few years and give it a second try. It's worth it! ;)

[Bakiryu]

I hated this book. I love the classics but I hated great expectations. Every time I began reading it got the sudden urge to set it on fire.

[swizzlestick]

The Scarlet Letter. I once attempted to read this book in my English class. By the bottom of two pages my head would make a resounding "thud" as it met my desk. My teacher, after watching me for a week, confronted me and said that it was too painful for him to watch me struggle anymore and gave me a synopsis of the book.

[Truthlover]

Could the problem with boring books be the environment and our own preferences? We are bombarded by myriad stimuli to our senses. While gymnasiums have mushroomed for our bodies, how much exercise do we give our brains? Are we brain-dead? Add to that methanphetamine's decomposing effects... I am reading Great Expectations. With minimal attention, levels of meaning can be discovered that defy exhaustive analysis. Thank God they didn't have television in the 19th Century. Would we have had authors like Austen, Trollope, George Eliot, Victor Hugo, Dickens, et al.?

[janesmith]

I can't relate to the majority of these posts I'm afraid. "Great Expectations" is a true classic and probably one of Dickens's best novels. I think it may be something to do with the age you attempt to read it. Try it again in a few more years when you've experienced life a little more. It may be more appealing then. Furthermore, it is just possible that Dickens, as a quitessentially English writer, could seem complex and alienating to young non-British readers.