I went into Suzanne Collins’ The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes thinking it would be a real eyeroller as I’m not to fond of YA dystopian sci-fi, but seeing as how the film adaption was around the corner and the time I sank into the Hunger Games trilogy (and being the unapologetic asshole who believes the words “the book was better” to be Mosaic Law), I said fuck it and gave it a read.
And I was surprised be how I wanted to keep going after the end of every chapter. I enjoyed getting into the head of Coriolanus Snow and his possessive infatuation with Lucy Gray and the inner working of Capitol class structure.
That’s not to say I don’t have issues with the book. The pacing is inconsistent, the actual Hunger Games are a relative bore, and some characters could have benefited from more focus.
But through it all, I don’t feel my time has been wasted reading it and am curious to see how the film adapts it.
Any books you’ve read that you thought you’d hate but ended up enjoying? Why?
The Twilight series….
I read the Twilight books because literally EVERYONE was reading them (2007ish) and I wanted to see what I was missing.
Honestly, they are fluff. They aren’t well written, the characters are not well developed, and the relationships the books glorify are pretty unhealthy. But damn if they aren’t a fun read!!
I call them “mind candy”. It’s the literary equivalent of eating candy and champagne for dinner and lying on the couch.
I’ve only read the first one, but there is a somewhat decent novel in there. I’d say the Cullens (except Edward himself, funnily enough) are written quite well, I have no trouble imagining their personalities. (I hadn’t watched the film when I read it.)
I call books like this Twinkies. No sustenance, all sugar, but still enjoyable
I call it popcorn fiction but I love mind candy. I was in my max pretentious teenager phase when twilight came out so I hated anything popular lol but I love reading similar fluff now because it’s fun.
I tried several times. IMHO they are awful. She is a bad writer, has no ability to develop characters that make you care, and she ruined vampires until Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan took them back wit my the Swarm series.
I get the point that it’s mindless but there are so many other mindless reads that aren’t awful.
This is how i feel about fourth wing right now. One thing that bothers me though is that most of the characters don’t really feel like actual characters. They’re more just vehicles for what the author wants to happen to the main character. I get its supposed to be smut, but like a bunch of the moments feel unearned and aren’t satisfying.
My wife made me read these back then, to this day i can’t stand thinking about the build up to the final conflict… And everyone walks away. Total waste of time to read.