Books which you read when you were, you now realise, far too young but have never got around to rereading...

[HmmAnOxfordComma]

Not a boast of any kind, but I did spend an awful lot of my early teens reading really quite highbrow fiction, which I now really regret. Most of them I've not looked at since and it bugs me that I didn't have a 'word with myself' or, indeed have access to more appropriate material (YA didn't exist).

Mine include most of Saul Bellow (about age 13), some Somerset Maugham (ditto), Wuthering Heights (age 11, but did retread this at Uni), some of the more obscure Hardy and Zola novels (maybe age 14?)

Anyone else wasted decent lit on being too young?

Oh and lots of Virago titles. Totally wasted on me.

Loads... but Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein and The Naked and The Dead by Mailer come to mind. (both around 13/14)

There were lots of others, where lots of the sex references went completely over my head.

My literature teacher gave me "The name of the rose" at 14. I read it as a thriller and loved it, but every time I look at it I think it was a waste and that I should read it again.

Animal Farm and 1984.

Animal farm. 1984. Lady chatterleys lover. The female eunuch. Sharpe. The rabbit books (can't really remember if that's what they were called). American psycho. Lots of Stephen king. There must have been others. I absolutely inhaled books from as soon as I could read. I'd read anything I could get my hands on.

Oh, the colour purple.

Sophie's Choice when I was about 13.

Oh, Sophie's Choice at 13 would have heartbreaking (more so than as a parent, maybe not?)

Mailer and Eco definitely hard going at that age.

I think that of all my 'read too earlies', it's Maugham I most want to read again.

Oh yes, the Virago titles and Women's' Press fiction when I was about 14. Totally wasted on me then and missed their mark completely.
Pearls before swine...

Also Lysistrata.
Must must re read that.

rabbit books by John Updike?

I read the Rabbit books in my early twenties and adored them. Didn't feel that was necessarily too young but would probably get a lot more out of them now. Must be due a reread.

Lots of Dickens and Hardy, and Middlemarch and Vanity Fair, all went over my head, I used to take books out of the library in primary school by thickness!!!
I read voraciously, but so much of what was implied was completely unregistered, although I enjoyed the "stories".
They are so thick though, that the thought of starting them again, when there is so much other good stuff to read is daunting.

I've seen several year 7/8 students in the last few years reading Les Miserables and said to them 'Are you sure you want to read that now? It might be a bit boring or heavy going just now' but most have reported back how much they loved it...so maybe we weren't so odd after all.

I get what you are saying but I think a classic should be able to keep giving. I tried to read 100 years of solitude when I was 20, it went completely over my head and I hated it. I re-read it at 30 (by this point with a Peruvian MIL) and completely got it, it's just so South American I can hardly believe anyone who doesn't know the culture could really get it. I re-read it again at 40 and will probably read it again at 50/60 etc.

George Mackay Brown (Scottish poet) said as he got older all he wanted to do was re-read the classics, and I can see what he means. I think it would be very interesting rereading Middlemarch now (read at 20ish).

Oh I agree. I was just musing on the idea that if you' d read all this great stuff really young and enjoyed it, you 'd be less likely to reread maybe than if you'd not enjoyed and were prepared to give it another go.

See, I think I've 'done' Bellow because I read him at 13, but am, I'm sure, doing myself a disservice. I keep planning a year or five of only rereading or reading other classics for the first time but there's always another brand new book getting in the way!

I read Pride and Prejudice aged 15, and the humour completely passed me by. It's now one of my favourite books.

At the same age, I also read some black power writers such as Eldridge Cleaver that my older brother was studying at university. I think most people would consider them completely inappropriate for a teenager but I don't think my parents noticed!

Yes, I read loads and loads when I was young; lots of the classics as others here say.

My dad (who hadn't read it) told me to read Lord of the Flies when I was nine- I was terrified.

I also went through a Russian fiction phase in my early teens. Things like Turgenev, Chekhov and also Solzhenitsyn - should really re-read to appreciate, I keep thinking.

Cold Comfort Farm. The humour was lost on me.

I keep meaning to reread Brave New World, I did it for English Lit. and hated it.

The cloning science is all wrong and it's full of Shakespeare quotes I didn't get.

I think now I might forgive those sins and actually get the themes it's ment to portray.

I also suspect it's the basis of a lot of my teen DDs stuff.

Scarlet & Black - Stendhal - when I was 13. Was just being pretentious really and don't remember much about it!

Oh and also I read a lot of John Fowles as a teenager and liked them all except the Magus - should probably try again...

Did he write "The French Lieutenants Woman", Maitre? I loved that, especially after a trip to Lyme Regis and a walk along the Cob.

Yes that was him! Loved it especially the alternative endings! Never been to Lyme sadly...

French Lieutenant's Woman is another one of mine. Must reread that; I gave my copy away as it had a really ugly 80s cover with a photo (of a TV adaptation on?) And Frenchman's Creek and My Cousin Rachel. I did reread Rebecca on more than one occasion but not any of Du Maurier's others.