I did the exact same thing with The Great Gatsby in 11th grade. Mrs. Patterson made us color code every green light reference and I thought it was the most boring book ever written. Wrote a whole essay about how Daisy was just a rich girl with no depth. Picked it up again at 31 after my best friend moved across the country and suddenly that last page about boats against the current wrecked me. Turns out the book was never about fancy parties or the 1920s, it was about wanting something so bad you can't see straight. I still have that color coded copy somewhere and I can't even look at it without laughing.

What made you finally tackle it after all those months of scrubbing?

Totally get it, that series wrecked me too and I never saw it coming.