<p>Wow. It seems all of the novels I truly love have appeared on this list. Crime and Punishment is my favorite novel (Raskolnikov is such a complex character that it really took two or three readings to get some of what Dostoyevstky was saying) and I loved Heart of Darkness, The Stranger, Hamlet (!), and The Catcher in the Rye. </p>
<p>But my least favorite would have to be Walden. Thoreau wrote how many stones there were around Walden pond, how much the supplies he purchased for the experiment cost, the history of the pond, etc. I wanted to gouge my eyes out with a hot fork after reading 20 pages of this. </p>
<p>If you want to feel like you're a real moron, try reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason; I couldn't make heads or tails of the first ten pages, let alone the remaining 200 (teaches me to read random German philosophers on my own)</p>
<p>"Catcher in the Rye- it does have meaning if you actually READ it not just look at the words but take in the meaning."</p>
<p>The thing I dislike about the book is not that it doesn't have meaning, because like you said, it does. What annoyed me was the narration by Holden Caulfield. I just didn't like him as a person. He was very repetitive and he complained a lot. </p>
<p>Julius Caesar is one that wasn't horrible, but I couldn't see why we were reading it. The overall meaning of the book wasn't one that seemed as profound as some of the others we read in class. Not horrible, but not nearly as good as some of the others we read this year.</p>
<p>I'm reading "By Night in Chile" for my college writing class right now. It's 150-some pages long and has TWO PARAGRAPHS in it, literally. The whole book is one paragraph except for the last sentence, which constitutes the second.</p>
<p>For a positive but hard to read story, I found "The Dead" by James Joyce hard to read, but it wasn't bad. Actually, I'm doing a research paper on it for English now.</p>
<p>I'm reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" and I have to say, it's hard to read only because it's hard to remember all the characters, then to remember who all the characters are disguised as, related to, or (in some cases) what their real identity is. It's confusing.</p>
<p>The book itself is good, though, so I guess (so far) this is a pleasurable, if hard, experience. I'm about 300 pages in.</p>
<p>Ahh Monte Cristo is so good! I never thought I would like reading another book again after honors english, but I loved Monte Cristo. Yeah there were a lot of characters to remember...like when Ali Pasha and the slave get thrown into the mix...but all in all great book.</p>
<p>Hmm I'd say Hamlet is hard only because I don't understand whats going on at all lol. And our book has word definitions on the FACING page with only line numbers for pointers so I dont know when to look up a word. I basically read down to the bottom of the page and ask myself what just happened.</p>
<p>If you aren't in charge of a major European country in the Renaissance, then this book is not very practical....He goes through every single detail of ruling a country. SO PAINFUL. </p>
<p>But, in the end, it was applicable in AP European history... grrrr</p>
<p>The Odyssey and The House on Mango Street like others have said. There was some book in 6th grade that the librarian recommended me for a book report because it was the most challenging on the list...I don't even remember what it was called but it was miserable to read through. Usually I read a book in 1-3 nights, but this took a week and a half for me to finish.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most boring book I've read recently is Blue Highways. No other book could possibly beat it in the category of irritatingly long and tedious.</p>
<p>"Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time"-it isn't hard, but it is quite possibly the most boring book in existence. :/</p>
<p>SUPERSPACE or One Thousand and One Lessons in Supersymmetry.
I genuinely liked the book a lot. However at the time it was ... extremely difficult. It took very, very long to finish.</p>