Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (by Mark Twain)

So this was my choice for the Read Harder Challenge category "An assigned book you hated (or never finished)." This isn't one I hated, but I took over teaching a course in the Great American Novel while the students were midway through this book, and I graded their essays without actually reading the book. (Frankly it made no difference in my ability to assess their arguments and use of textual evidence to make those arguments.) 

I haven't read anything about this novel since then (it was over a decade ago), and I know if I do I'll fully understand why this 19th century work is the Great American Novel and all that. But I've read too many slave narratives to find the whole "ha ha, Tom and Huck do crazy things to set Jim free!" plot amusing in the slightest. The n-word aside, and Jim's humanity aside, and the happy ending aside, this massively downplays the horrors of slavery and here, in 2018, I can't deal with it.

I can work hard to get the historical context and appreciation of this novel -- and I probably should, since this is really the last book in the American canon that I haven't read or studied.  But I'm starting to think the American canon is bullshit anyway, and I have better things to do with my time. So, yeah. Fine. I read it. It's a classic. Whatevs.