I'm a high schooler at a pretty rigorous private school who just earned a B+ this semester, and I'd like to change that. I tried asking my father for advice, and he just recommended a dense, 800 page Russian literature novel (I believe it was Anna Karenina?), which isn't exactly my cup of tea. The problem is that I just find reading most of these "deep" fiction novels boring. I normally slog through an overly long exposition, read around 50 more pages, and then just stash the book in my shelf for the rest of time. I tried reading Slaughterhouse 5, Lolita, and some other "classical" books before just getting bored or weirded out. I get through most "light" fiction fine; I found a few Michael Crichton books, Ready Player One, and other "easy read" books pretty enjoyable to read.
And I don't think my attention span is the issue. I spend a significant amount of time just solving math problems and going through math and physics textbooks in my free time. I also like reading about political philosophy and history (like this book on Rachmaninov called Goodbye Russia), particularly on the economics side (like The Communist Manifesto, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, and some other similar, less well-known books). In general, I just like thinking about ideas. I find history class at school pretty easy, but English class more difficult. I think my prose is fine; it's more of the "come up with a substantial analytical thesis about the book we read (like the scarlet letter, or the great gatsby), and make a convincing argument by going beyond basic plot points" that I tend to perform more poorly on. But I would still always vastly prefer doing any STEM related activity over reading fiction.
Maybe I don't need to ever become a skilled analytical English student, because I only have three more semesters of English before it becomes optional for the rest of my life. But I don't really want to be one of those strong engineers who cannot read and write for the life of him.
So besides easy to read science fiction novels, what are your recommendations? I'd love to say to myself, "Wow, I just finished [insert dense, difficult to read book here]", but I'm not really sure how to get there without getting bored.
by Less_Method4290