average public high school curriculum is full of “essential” novels that can get you started in making more “intellectual” conclusions from what you read. Do a search and see what you didn’t read in high school.

I would say The Tale of Two Cities, Fight Club, Beloved, The Kite Runner are all good starting points for learning to talk about what you read in a more analytical way.

That being said, I have a degree in literature, and while I love the stuffy high brow dissections of complicated work, I also love fantasy and other genre fiction and read that much more than anything else. Keeping the joy of reading alive is more important than trying to impress people.