Hilarious summaries of classic novels? There’s a comic for that.

Who needs SparkNotes?

There are few things in life as relaxing as cuddling up with a good book.

And it’s even better with a classic novel, right? But classics can sometimes be … kind of funny.

In a hilarious series of comics, illustrator John Atkinson gives us some less-than-classic descriptions of the classic books you probably had to read in high school.

In 1926, The New York Times described Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” as “a truly gripping story, told in a lean, hard, athletic narrative prose that puts more literary English to shame.”


Atkinson’s description? “Lost generation gets drunk. They’re still lost.”

Yeah, he gets it.

Here are some of his favorite versions of the abridged classics:

Of course, classics are classics for a reason.

Many of these books are timeless favorites. We love them and many of us will read them repeatedly. But having a laugh about the things we enjoy can totally be good for the soul.

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