Crime and Punishment is pretty cool, like The Master and Margarita as well; also mfw schools still make 10th graders read War and Peace, never liked that idea because it's no book for 16 years old teens

I only remember two: Antigone, which was alright, and The Visit, which I dreaded (in retrospect it wasn't that bad, I guess I just hate reading in Hebrew). Obviously a lot of Jewish authors on the side, nationalist and otherwise, because hey it's Israel. We also studied the Old Testament from a literary perspective (in a separate class obviously), which kinda counts. I actually liked that better than the literature class, but the literature there wasn't to my taste to begin with.

I kinda envy those of you that read 1984 and BNW in class, even though they're a bit cliche nowadays (DAE today is literally 1984????) - haven't read 1984 yet, but BNW is great and I'm sure 1984 is as well. Love me some dystopias.

I read War and Peace by choice - but any HS that makes kids read Dostoevsky and Bulgakov would be one hell of a school (we did not).

The books that I remember most clearly were: basically every major play of Shakespeare, Chaim Potok's books about being a Jew in America during ww2, the most homo-erotic book ever "A Separate Peace", Ray Bradburry stuff, and Richard Wright's Native Son.

I got BNW in university. Had to read Dosty and Bulgakov on my own lol. But I was always a book nerd, read Das Kapital when I was 17 lol.

The ending of their eyes were watching god is the best part and it almost made the rest of the book worth it for me.

My favorites are Catcher in the Rye, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Eleanor and Park, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

i didnt read most of them but i liked catcher in the rye even though most of my friends hated it

I didn't view the script but Synecdoche, New York is a good story.

We read as part of our curriculum

Romeo and Juliet (Good play)
Richard III (Ok)
Hamlet (Ok)
Our Day Out by Willy Russell (Good)
Frankenstein (Good)
Lord of the Flies (Good)
The Color Purple (I liked this but the ending was kind of dumb)
Wuthering Heights (End me now)
+ a ton of poetry

I also read a ton of books that were really good but not part of our curriculum when I was in High School, among the best being Breakfast of Champions and 1984.

The beach by Alex Garland

this year:
The Grapes of Wrath (ok)
The Odyssey (good)
Romeo & Juliet (ok)

And last year/in middle school I read:
Animal Farm (good)
To Kill a Mockingbird (very good)
Lord of the Flies (very good)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (good)
Hamlet (very good)
Fahrenheit 451 (good)

Every post-soviet school is a hell - you aren't wrong here.
I was forced to read pretty much all of Russian classic and it was super boring at the time. Few years after school I decided to (re-)read some of these works by choice and some of them were really good.
Here's some suggestions:

• Anton Chekhov's short stories.
  
• Mikhail Bulgakov "Heart of a Dog".
  
• Yevgeny Zamyatin "We" - somewhat similar to 1984.
  
• Arkady and Boris Strugatsky "Hard to Be a God" - Soviet sci-fi.
  
• Stanisław Lem "Solaris" - Polish sci-fi.

I do not recommend to start "War and Peace" in the highschool, unless you are really interested in the early 19th century historical period and the Napoleon's invasion of Russia in particular. I tried to start it a several times in the school years, but couldn't past the point where people were getting wasted while making bets and dancing with a bear (very beginning).

Freshman year i read A Long Way Gone and Fast Food Nation for AP Human Geo

Sophomore year i read No Country For Old Men and i was actually interested in doing the 8 page book report for it

This year i'm a junior taking a 12th grade honors class and where I read Watchmen for thr summer assignment and my class is currently reading Hunger Games.

wtf did you go to the same school as mine because I swear I read the exact same books..

Pebble in the Sky, Childhood's End, Animal Farm, assorted H.G. Wells stuff.

Oldschool Sci-fi is the best

Yeah I wouldn't recommend Tolstoy at all to younger people - maybe Anna Karenina, but even that is pushing it. I could see a good justification for an "abridged" version in HS, but the full work is too much.

Bulgakov is challenging for HS students because he expects a lot of cultural foreknowledge that most HS people aren't going to have - especially in the US. Master and Margarita is very widely read, but I imagine most of the best bits (having to do with Soviet life in the 30's and Russian Orthodoxy) are completely missed by most US audiences. That and he purposefully tried to write as much like Gogol as possible, and you'd never get that if you hadn't read any Gogol (who sadly, I'm told, isn't very widely read in the US). But if you like books, read Dead Souls http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1081/1081-h/1081-h.htm (English translation) you wont regret it.

Since you mention "we" though - I'll recommend my favorite Soviet-era satire: Twelve Chairs http://www.lib.ru/ILFPETROV/ilf_petrov_12_chairs_engl.txt

othello's story is amazing

Catcher in the Rye

Book Thief was pretty good.

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry

A very nice novel about Indians living in a rough time and they were both tailors. Pretty good story and inspiring. Recommended to me by my AP English teacher and I have not forgotten about it.

The ones that didn't have sparknotes shoutout to teachers that are fucking pricks
I mean if we read it in class that's fine but do you really expect me to go home and not play 7 hours of my favorite game TF2
I've enjoyed Neil Gaiman's books but that's not really a highschool thing

Huck Finn