@Pale Rider was Lord of the Flies your set book for Eng Lit?
It was mine and I put my failure down to my utter distaste for it.
Well done for guessing when I read it.
It may have been a set book, but there were a few books at the time which us rebellious grammar school boys thought were cool.
Lord of the Flies was one of those, so I might have read it just for the sake of it.
I thought it was OK rather than a classic, but am surprised anyone could find it utterly distasteful.