@yogthos English, French and Americans are deluded. We all die and most likely not for honour, love or freedom but misadventure, poor health and disease; in the end we all die.
I remember I thought it was awful when I read it in seventh grade, but tbh I trust the opinion of a random stranger online more than I trust seventh grade me.
The one thing I remember was the kid Kenny who sat next to me in english period looked at the page I was on and picked out a sentence that was something like '"God damn it!", the cook ejaculated." and made a big thing about it and the teacher started yelling at us to quiet down. I genuinely don't think I'd remember the book existed otherwise.
Its one of my favs. On the surface its a character study, but there's a lot of powerful philosophical, social, and psychological questions in there, and a critique of US dog-eat-dog individualism. And it manages to be entertaining also.