(Note: the following is written without having read any book on that list, so I can't speak directly to their content or appropriateness for the average high schooler.)
If it weren't for the fact that many/most high-schoolers go through a phase where they are utterly enthralled with depressing books that have depressing endings, Lurlene McDaniel wouldn't have ever gotten her *second* book published, let alone her *60th*. Reader demand for doooomy stories among that age group is through the roof (in general, and exceptions are frequent, of course) and has been for a long time. So it's very possible that a large portion of the student body *could* look forward to that sort of book being their summer reading.
That's probably also a big reason why Shakespeare's tragedies get assigned so frequently, particularly Hamlet & R&J with their high levels of "teenage angst". (Another reason being, "Hey, they're interested in depressing stories anyway, lets point them at some capital-L Literature that's really similar in content & tone to the stuff they're reading for 'fun', and hope that some of them get hooked on the 'good' stuff!".)
As they get older, they generally grow out of that phase--often into the "women's book club" phase with such happy, uplifting, fun, escapist stories as "Brokeback Mountain".
That said, enjoyment of fun, escapist literature is also very common at that point--part of the "trying on new hats" and "living vicariously through fictional characters" of mid- to late adolescence, which I suspect also explains a large part of Twilight's popularity--and people don't grow into and out of the phase in universal lockstep, so it's wrong to assume that that's the only sort of book students'd be interested in. And I think a leaning towards reading only fun books is also much more common among truly voracious readers than occasional or average readers, for various reasons. I almost certainly would've hated--or at least been so leery of that I would've avoided--every book on that list when I was that age, even though I might appreciate them if I read them now; so I wish there were more fun, escapist books on the list, besides or in addition to the currently omnipresent Hunger Games, so that it'd be much closer to having something for everyone.
no subject
If it weren't for the fact that many/most high-schoolers go through a phase where they are utterly enthralled with depressing books that have depressing endings, Lurlene McDaniel wouldn't have ever gotten her *second* book published, let alone her *60th*. Reader demand for doooomy stories among that age group is through the roof (in general, and exceptions are frequent, of course) and has been for a long time. So it's very possible that a large portion of the student body *could* look forward to that sort of book being their summer reading.
That's probably also a big reason why Shakespeare's tragedies get assigned so frequently, particularly Hamlet & R&J with their high levels of "teenage angst". (Another reason being, "Hey, they're interested in depressing stories anyway, lets point them at some capital-L Literature that's really similar in content & tone to the stuff they're reading for 'fun', and hope that some of them get hooked on the 'good' stuff!".)
As they get older, they generally grow out of that phase--often into the "women's book club" phase with such happy, uplifting, fun, escapist stories as "Brokeback Mountain".
That said, enjoyment of fun, escapist literature is also very common at that point--part of the "trying on new hats" and "living vicariously through fictional characters" of mid- to late adolescence, which I suspect also explains a large part of Twilight's popularity--and people don't grow into and out of the phase in universal lockstep, so it's wrong to assume that that's the only sort of book students'd be interested in. And I think a leaning towards reading only fun books is also much more common among truly voracious readers than occasional or average readers, for various reasons. I almost certainly would've hated--or at least been so leery of that I would've avoided--every book on that list when I was that age, even though I might appreciate them if I read them now; so I wish there were more fun, escapist books on the list, besides or in addition to the currently omnipresent Hunger Games, so that it'd be much closer to having something for everyone.