I think I will have to say Lord of the Flies, simply because I have been forced to read and reread this book five times for classes since junior high.

This has particularly not taught me Golding's message that humans are innately evil or malicious, but that people are extraordinarily lazy and conformist.

Between all of the times I had to read the book between schools and school districts the questions never changed, never got harder never got easier. It was all over analyzing everything written in to the book, if you are proficient at bullshitting something even remotely coherent you are good.

So I suppose Golding got me to be a bit more of a pessimist than I already was about humanity, not because without a ruling power we will result in killing each other.