@dlowan,
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, i love this book even as a non religious person i have to say what little faith i have i owe to John Irving. And i mean talk about Catharsis if you want to read a cathartic book, read A Prayer for Owen Meany.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, I am obsessed with Quentin Compson's section its deep insights and the way it is written as a boy walking through cambridge talking about life.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, i wish i could talk about this with people because unlike most i actually dislike the book. Its got a great plot but to me Huxley didnt get to say everything he wanted to in this boo; to me its one long introduction for john then no middle action and one long conclusion leading to the end of the book. I think the fact that John wasnt around for that long takes away the cathartic feeling a reader could get from this book.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins- it has a great but overused plot but has the worst writing style ever. Each sentence is just subject verb, subject verb there is no variation at all.
Harrison Bergeron (Short story) by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I would love to talk about this story because i love Vonnegut even as a grouchy old man when he wrote a man without a country, and this story was designed to be a short story. There is no way this story could be expanded and Vonnegut does a great job of realizing that.