Metamorphosis

I'd actually never previously read Kafka, but found this short work to be surprisingly compelling. I can also understand both why English teachers love it (there are many different ways to read the story and interpret its meaning), and high school students forced to read it hate it (there are many different ways to read it, none of them are necessarily right, nothing actually happens). But reading it on my own as an adult I found Gregor's drive to retain some humanity more affecting than I expected.