📚 10 Books I Pretended to Read (But Still Have Strong Opinions About)

1. 📖 Ulysses by James Joyce
   I didn’t read it. No one read it. People commune with it in candlelit rooms and then sob into their cardigans. I assume it’s just a really long Irish dad joke.

2. 🐋 Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
   I skipped straight to the whale bits and declared it "overrated cetacean propaganda." Queequeg deserves his own spinoff reality show.

3. 👒 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
   I’ve seen enough memes to know Mr. Darcy is a red flag with good cheekbones. Also, I just feel like Elizabeth Bennet would hate me, and I respect that.

4. 🔬 A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
   I opened it once and blacked out somewhere between “quantum” and “event horizon.” But I strongly believe time is just a soup. Don’t @ me.

5. 🎓 Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
   I carried it around for vibe purposes and now have tendonitis. I assume it’s about tennis and ennui and owning too many footnotes.

6. 📜 The Art of War by Sun Tzu
   I’ve never read it, but I quote it in meetings to feel powerful. “Know thy enemy” is great advice for networking events and family reunions.

7. 🎩 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
   I skimmed enough to know Miss Havisham is the blueprint for emotionally unwell drama queens everywhere, and I salute her.

8. 🧙‍♂️ The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
   I opened to page one, saw a name with seventeen accent marks, and immediately took a nap. But I WILL defend Elvish lore in arguments with strangers.

9. 🐖 Animal Farm by George Orwell
   I know there are pigs and communism, and honestly, that’s enough for me to pretend I wrote my thesis on it. "All animals are equal"—except me, because I’m smarter than a barnyard.

10. 💣 The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
    I’ve never read it, but I’ve met enough people who loved it in high school to assume Holden Caulfield is the original sad boy influencer. Peak beanie-wearing angst.

🚨 BONUS BOOK I THOUGHT I READ BUT ACTUALLY DREAMED ABOUT READING IN A DENTIST’S CHAIR:
📚 Wuthering Heights
Everyone is mad, no one is okay, and there's a LOT of wind. Pretty sure it’s just ghostly emo yelling on the moors.