Honestly my middle school having me read maximum ride is what bolstered my urge to keep reading for so long. I feel like as we get older, a lot of complex books get added (for good reasons), but introducing people to a variety of books is important to try to foster interest in reading at all.
I have spent a good 10 years of my life re-reading and re-analyzing the hunger games since I read them too young to fully understand them. They appear simple and the movies cheapened it a lot, but there are so many different layers to unpack. It’s a shame so much time was spent on frivolous analysis and also pretty ironic.
As someone who actively chooses to keep analyzing the hunger games after 10 years, that’s wayyyyy too long for a school to focus on it, especially with such shallow assignments. I’m sorry it ruined the experience for you :( but as for me I really disliked Steinbeck and the scarlet letter. I wish I liked them as I enjoyed other classics, but the assignments really make or break a book for me.