it doesn’t have to be your favorite book or anything. It can be any book that you find yourself thinking of with a sense of pride for having read it.
Personally, I am really proud of myself for not DNFing A Little Life and pushing forward. I read a very good chunk of that book with tears running down my face–mind you, I was reading it on my phone during lectures for the entirety of my first semester last year–and I was always on the verge of putting it down just because of the horrible content. Also, it was pretty long; too long, actually. So when I was done, I was simultaneously Heartbroken, broken (just like in general), and relieved. It was truly a feat.
An honorable mention is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, because I swear to God I did not understand a single thing about it even 10 chapters in. Charles Dickens is too much.
Frankenstein, not a difficult read but we read it in my AP Lit class and had to write an essay about it. I’ve always struggled with school after elementary school because I was undiagnosed adhd but I was good at taking tests and well spoken because I was very well read(I seriously would devour any book I could get my hands on, I’ve read multiple books in a day at that time) anyways my ap teacher was tough and I managed to get the highest grade in the class on that essay with a note from my teacher expressing how I was the first person in 20 years to make her see the story from a different perspective and how she was happily surprised and genuinely impressed and I just remember everyone in class staring at me almost in awe because it wasn’t just the highest grade for that essay, I was the only one in that whole year to get that high of a grade on any essay we did that year. I ended up getting a 4 on my ap lit test. Sounds low but the highest score you can get is a 5. Probably should have went to college instead of trying to kill my self and moving in with a psychopathic drug dealer but hey! Trauma and mental illness is practically a necessity for any aspiring writer.