If you love seeing young British boys slowly lose their minds due to a lack of authority, then William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is the book for you!

The plot revolves around the idea that people shouldn’t be governed by a system but rather themselves. The story follows a group of young boys (aged 6-12) stranded on an unsettled island from a plane crash. They quickly develop a short-lived system of laws on the island, eventually leading to the downfall of everything.

On my tier list of banned books, Lord of the Flies sits uncomfortably at D.  It took me a while to finish — about a week and a half. Also, the story doesn’t give the reader much insight into the notorious plane crash and the lives of the characters before it (except for Percival Wemys Madison, who lives on Harcourt Street in London. In case he got lost, he memorized his address. Ironic, isn’t it?).

Anyways, this book has been challenged and banned in multiple schools because of its profanity and violent nature. (I’d recommend skipping the rest of this paragraph for the animal lovers out there.) Throughout the story, the kids find and torment animals, ritualistically chanting around them because they love to hear their victims scream. In the end, the boys start killing each other due to the breakdown of their small civilization. (Spoiler: the true Lord of the Flies is a severed head that talks to one of the main characters. Keep in mind that it doesn’t really speak; the kid just goes insane. Also, the head is infested with flies.) The novel is currently available for checkout in  Sno-Isle Libraries.