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 Fault in Our Stars by John Greene. My girlfriend (now wife) suggested it and I didn’t think that I would based on the description but I found myself liking it and finished it with no problems.
Same for this one, definitely thought I wouldn’t like it, especially after hearing everyone talking about the romance in it, which is a genre I don’t specifically like, but I really enjoyed it
I avoided this because of how sad it looked but my grade 8 students really wanted me to read it to them. I thought it was a really good book but there were many times I had to have students take over reading because I was crying too hard.