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.
Dune by Frank Herbert. The vocabulary and the sheer contents of the book scared me at first(I was a fairly rare reader then ).
But as I read on, the very things that scared me brought me closer to the book. The insane amount of details and the magnitude of work Frank put towards this book kept me hooked. The characters were of so much life with minor quarks and unsuspecting depths to their development.
It took me about an year to finish this book, it was worth every second spent.
I would say that the book has reshaped my thought processes and perceptions to an extent. I had so many epiphanies reading the book.
10/10 Reading the sequels.
I remember reading it the first time in college. I was totally lost. I’ve re-read it easily a dozen times. When the movie came out in 1984, all the words were totally different from how I was pronouncing them.
Yeah same story here lol. Let's see if it's just us or there's company.