Honors English II Book Ranking

Since Honors English is becoming a skinny block next year, I am ranking the books for the upcoming sophomores to know what’s the best and worst.

7. Beowülf

1. Beowülf was my pick for the worst book because it made no sense at all. The book is written in old English, so no one understands it. The plotline is also confusing. I’m not sure what actually happened and neither did anyone else. This book accompanied Gilgamesh and had vocabulary words that made the book hard to comprehend. Sophomore Amelia Hanson agreed, “[Beowülf] was so hard to understand that I couldn’t read anything from it”

6. Old Man and the Sea

2. Old man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway was one of the two worst books in the Honors English Curriculum. The book is so boring and it takes forever to read because I kept wanting to fall asleep. Thankfully the book is short, so it only was a week of boring reading.

5. Gilgamesh

3.  Gilgamesh was my 5th book. This book was not great. The book started off Honors English and was a hard book to begin with. The book was written in old English, so no one could easily read it. The second chapter also gets a little steamy which makes some students uncomfortable.

4. Frankenstein

4.  Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was another ok book. This book has another great plot and kept students coming back to see what the creature was going to do next. This book also brought along many projects and arguments about nurture vs. nature. 

3. Julius Caesar

5.  Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare is another play in the Honors English Curriculum. I did not really enjoy this book, but it was better than the other options. The book was a little hard to read, but once you began reading you started to understand it. The version of the book also helped with a glossary and modals on every other page.

2. A Streetcar Named Desire

6. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams is my second favorite book. As an actor, I enjoy getting to read and listen to this play. It was a nice break from reading and the story was also easy to understand. The only problem with this book is that the ending had a rape scene which made some students uncomfortable. “You could say it was a powerful symbol of the power men had back then, but it seemed to romanticize abuse more than show how awful it was,” expressed sophomore Rachel Coon.

1. The Great Gatsby

7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is the best book read in Honors English II by far. The book is clear and easily understood at first glance. There are many metaphors and symbols that the class dives deep into. There are also many enjoyable projects that go along with this book. Sophomore Kiran Kothavale enjoys it because of its historical factor. Kothavale stated, “I really liked that period in history. People spent money frivolously and the Jazz music.”