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I've received a school project where I need to read a book but I've never really wanted to read a book and don't know many books at all. What book should I read?
People like me are why I believe the slippery slope is a fact, not a fallacy...
I'm asking this in the context of a school project mainly because of 2 things:
1: 2 of the questions of the project are about main and secondary characters and their physical and psychological characteristics, so the book is gonna require those unless I'm misinterpreting those questions.
2: The project is for March 12th so something like 1984 with 300+ pages is probably too long. (Although there are probably many technicalities to blur this, like how much text there is in a page and the actual amount of pages I can read in a given time and how much time can I dedicate to reading the damn book.)
1984 may be too long, but Animal Farm is nice and short. Although maybe it's not fitting that most of the characters in it are allegorical...
Animal Farm might be exactly what OP needs. Short, enough characters, lots of stuff to write about and lots and lots of stuff to write about if you want to tie in the bigger themes about communism.
The Metamorphosis by Kafka.
It's 55 pages long. It's by Kafka. It's free to read online.
It has two main characters. One character undergoes extreme physical transformation and the other changes psychologically as a result.
I've tried to include a wide range of books, suitable for different ages. Don't be put off by the page counts! These are books for young adults so they have larger font sizes, more spacing, and they tend to have simpler language. Most of these books are used in schools so they should have study guides and teaching notes available if you look around, and those can give you ideas about how to tackle the book.
Patrick Ness
The Knife of Never Letting Go https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knife_of_Never_Letting_Go
The Ask and the Answer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ask_and_the_Answer
Monsters of Men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_of_Men
This is a trilogy that has won awards and is respected. Here are some reading guides for the first book: https://jwpblog.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/a-reading-guide-to-the-knife-of-never-letting-go.pdf
Meg Rosoff
Just in Case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_in_Case
Another award winner. Here's a reading guide: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/302825/just-in-case-by-meg-rosoff/9780452289376/readers-guide/
Kevin Brooks
The Bunker Diary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bunker_Diary
This is controversial because it's grim and violent. I didn't find a study guide for it.
Kate Thompson
Creature of the Night https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_of_the_Night_(novel)
Tanya Landman
Buffalo Soldier https://www.amazon.co.uk/Buffalo-Soldier-Tanya-Landman/dp/1406314595 (This doesn't have a wikipedia page)
Study Guide: http://classroom.walkerbooks.com.au/home/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Buffalo-Soldier-Classroom-Ideas.pdf
What other types of media do you like? Are there any movies, video games, TV shows, etc that you really enjoy, particularly for their characters? It might help to narrow down on a book if you start with what you know you like already.
To be honest I don't really tend to consume too much media past what I see here or on reddit. I like undertale and remember the characters and story being really detailed and important with the 7 souls and the character's dreams and you and chara being a really complicated character and and the Easter eggs (although it's been 5 years since the original release and deltarune appears to be coming along pretty slowly so I don't remember it even passingly) and Detroit: become human also has that same type of story (or in these cases stories), but the main aspect that interests me is the environment of the games and the circumstances it creates for the characters (and you) to navigate, not really the characters themselves. The rest of the media I enjoy that isn't informative/educative is either simulation games like Hoi4 or Eu4 (granted this means you are stuck waiting for 'the game that is truly accurate with no concessions everTM' like a hamster waiting for the future to be now but I digress) or sandbox games like SMM1&2, geometry dash or minecraft, which don't have a story so you can build your own.
How about something like I Am Legend? Short book, with a main character and a single named secondary character who shows up towards the end of it. Lots of psychology to unwrap, primarily in the main character.
It's the kind of book you could knock out in a day or so if you really committed to it. It's really easy to read and it's a classic. Plus it basically birthed the zombie genre (despite only featuring vampires).
A bit of an unusual suggestion, but have you considered Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? A book does not need to be philosophical or dense to have characters that can be deeply examined. I'm recommending this because it's short, fun, and if you've never had the desire to read a book this one will keep you interested.
Now's probably as good a time as ever for you to read Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Though, I prefer his other works (especially Franny and Zooey). Still, you're in the best age range for Catcher in the Rye to hit.
I'd also recommend Vonnegut. Particularly Cat's Cradle.
The Stranger. Is really short plus its philosophical in nature so lots to write about
It's been decades since I read it, but I seem to recall all the secondary characters in The Stranger are basically just blank slates. Not much to digest there, and I'd argue that someone unaccustomed to reading books is not going to be able to draw enough meaning out of it to actually have much to write about.
To be fair, I felt like the primary character was a pretty blank slate. I enjoyed reading about someone with such disconnection.
Just for reference, is this for a high school or college class?
9th grade, so high school.
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.
Just kidding. If you want an "easy" book to read – as in, one that doesn't require you to spend too much time analyzing it – I would recommend Cell by Stephen King. It's an interesting sci-fi zombie-apocalypse book with not that many characters.
Or, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling if you want it real easy.
If you want to actually challenge yourself and learn – which I would wholeheartedly support, given that there are plenty of excellent books out there – read other recommendations in a couple of hours.
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams.
The obvious juxtoposition of power between the characters should make it a little simpler to define their physiological and psychological characteristics.
It's also a play, so it's easier to read than a novel, and should be more engaging as there needs to be a little more action in a play.
I would like to recommend some light SF with a great character, the first book in the Murderbot Diaries series: All systems red.
I'm going to second this recommendation! They're very fun books and also quick and easy reads. They're very short but very compelling. The books go a lot into the characteristics of the main character and the side characters. It's not heavy Sci fi and is good fun to read!
A Christmas Carol by Dickens.
It's 68 pages long. It's by Dickens. It's free to read online. You probably already know the story of Scrooge.
It's main character undergoes a significant psychological change, and you could pick either a ghost or Tiny Tim as the secondary character.
Of Mice and Men!
Short and sweet and has some great characters
Watchmen by Alan Moore. There's a lot to digest in what character wants what and what they are willing to do to solve their problems and remove their obstacles. Plus it has a bunch of pretty pictures, and if you need to go off on a tangent for length, you can talk about how it has influenced contemporary superhero works.
I only understood Watchmen when I watched the film, and I read it multiple times. I'm not a young man.
Catch 22 was a pretty funny one, it's been a long time since I've read it. Quite dark humor though... Probably too many pages but yknow if it's fun the pages kinda just melt away.
Catch 22 is great... but definitely too much to take on at this point.
Personally, if you're a fan of the story and worldbuilding of Undertale, and you are interested in the fantasy genre at all, I wholeheartedly recommend Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. It has some interesting commentary, and it's a light read with characters that have some strong growth and development throughout both the book and the series.
Can you read a comic book?
Yeah? The teacher kept the requirements for input vague and focused on the questions to output presumably for this very purpose.
So do you like cartoons, comics, super-heroes or anything of the sort? What about anime and manga?
Refer to this comment
Tl;dr I don't really know, I don't follow a lot of things very closely.
Okay. I suppose you have a general knowledge of widely known icons, such as Superman, Batman, and The Joker. With that in mind, I suggest those:
Those are all easily available online and were translated to Portuguese.
edit: I was linking to the wrong Dark Knight
You should read A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin. For me it's a masterpiece but I did read it first when I was pretty young, it's technically marketed as "young adult fiction". It is fantasy but I think in a way the fantasy aspect is just a vehicle to discuss universal humanist themes and and other philosophical concepts.
(Ursula Le Guin was a very interesting person. She passed away two years ago, still makes me a little sad tbh. Not that it was a tragic end or anything, I just miss knowing she's out there.)
I find receiving a recommendation to a project that ended over a year ago at least a bit amusing.
But more seriously, most 'ask' topics aren't time sensitive, so feel free to reply on those.
Haha I had just realized there are bios here, and they actually get used. Sorry that was probably a little odd.
In some forums it's not unusual for threads several years old to be revived, but those forums are mostly sorted exclusively by activity with no other sorting options.
So... how did it go? Which book did you pick?
I picked Metamorphosis. The project went fine IIRC.