School Reading: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

I've had mixed experiences with required reading at school, but one book I finished for school a few months ago has stayed with me ever since. I'm talking about The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers.

I don't feel that a full review could possibly do this book justice, but I love this book on so many levels that I feel obligated to express my thoughts in one way or another here.

It's amazing to think that someone so young could write such remarkable prose, every word infused with this sort of quiet but beautiful tone. Reading this book puts you in a stupor, and it's so easy to get sucked into the lonely Southern world she paints with such skill.

And the characters. They're definitely the pillars that hold the story up, and ugh, I loved each and every one of them. Their individual stories were so heart-breaking, and then the way they were all wound together around the central tenet of Singer gave me serious writer-envy.

And as for that event that occurs at the end of Part 2? (I won't reveal because of spoilers.) I literally felt it like a stab in the heart. It was beautiful and terrible at the same time.

So have you read the Heart is a Lonely Hunter? What required school reading did you end up loving... and what did you end up hating?