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?
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A friend and I traded book recs. His was a DnD book called Homeland: The Legend of Drizzt. Not my thing AT ALL. But I did it, I read it in 15-20 minute spurts when I’d be in line to pick my kid up from school. And it wasn’t as awful as I’d feared! It wasn’t GREAT by any means, and I won’t be picking up the next one in the series, but there were interesting parts and I didn’t want to poke my eyes out.
Jekyll and Hyde. I thought I’d hate it since every book that we did before in school I found boring but I enjoyed this book and ended up buying myself a copy after we finished studying it
Klara and the sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, I didn’t think I’d hate it but wasn’t sure what to think of it. After reading while going through a rough time earlier this year it left a everlasting impression on me.
Three times now I’ve had to read a genre I generally dislike for a reading challenge, and three times now I’ve found a book I adored as a result. I ended up with some DNF books I hated as well, but I always ended up finding one I loved in the end.
The first was a historical romance, which is VERY MUCH not my usual jam. Ended up reading Mrs. Martin’s Incomparable Adventure and laughing my ass off. Turns out, I’m entirely down with romance novels as long as they’re funny!
The second was a political thriller (too much tension in a world that’s too real tends to stress me out, so I avoid them), but While Justice Sleeps had me super engaged. I love it when highly intelligent protagonists are working against highly intelligent antagonists, and this definitely gave my brain the excited chemicals instead of the anxious ones.
Thirdly was a horror novel, but someone on r/fantasy recommended some fantasy/horror crossover books for folks who were feeling nervous about this square on the Fantasy Bingo card, and so I ended up reading The Library at Mount Char, figuring I couldn’t gate any book with a library in its title too badly. And I ended up adoring it! It was dark, but dark in a way that gripped and fascinated me, rather than giving me nightmares.
Anyway, this is why I love doing reading challenges every year. It breaks me out of my comfort zone and introduces me to stories and authors I never would have discovered otherwise.