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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“Say Nothing” was incredible. I’d been waiting for him to write that book since he did a New Yorker article on the case in 2015.
Lord of the Rings. I was struggling at first to get i to it but once I got into it I didn’t want to put it down. That and it’s so eff’ing loooooong
Emily Henry’s books…turns out I actually do like romance stories lol
Remains of the Day. It was a bit slow at times, but not at all to the degree I expected. Beautiful ending.
Ender’s Game Ready Player One
I love Ender’s Game.
Speaker for the Dead is just as great, though the empathetic and compassionate themes are so confusing given the author is a bigoted piece of rancid shit
I don’t like Speaker for the Dead as much. It’s a decent novel, but I think there’s a reason most people have only read or heard or the first.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. I’ve never been into the historical fiction genre. I decided to read it because I was seeing it everywhere and other readers raving about it. I ended up loving it.
The House in the Cerulean Sea. I did the audiobook and thought what is this a kids book? Man this is so cheesy! But I kept listening and by the end of it as quite teary-eyed. I think the narrator did a great job.
Same here! I have no idea what possessed me to check out a somewhat hokey fantasy book but man, I absolutely loved it. The audiobook narrator knocked it out of the park! Unfortunately the other books by Klune have been duds but I still love and recommend Cerulean all the time.
The secret history by Donna Tart
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle, it was a book club read and it really isn’t the kind of thing I normally pick up I ended up really enjoying it.
The Great Gatsby. I didn’t have the opportunity to read it in high school, and as much as I loved reading then, I hated most of the required books.
At the same time, I wanted to have read the required books because they come up on Jeopardy and I’m a big dork.
I really liked it. Much better than half the crap we had to read.
Props to you guys that read books you’d think you’d hate. I only read books I think I’ll really enjoy.
Anne of Green Gables. It always seemed like a book I wouldn’t like but I finally read it at age 33…I was totally moved by that sweet little girl with big dreams and I sobbed at the end. Now it is one of my favorite books! I’ve only read the first one though, not the whole series.
Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat. I was recommended this book by my grandmother, and I do not usually read memoirs and I don’t usually like the same genres as she does but thought I would give it a shot because of how much she enjoyed it. And turns out… I absolutely loved it, and have reread it recently as well. Such a powerful and passionate memoir. Would definitely recommend.
Journey to the End of Night. Celine is so abrasive and antithetical to my stylistic preferences but he’s one of the greatest writers of the 20th century I can’t deny. It’s all truth.
The Casual Vacancy by Rowling. Not that the hate was driven by her being a terf or whatever, but I thought it’d be a boring book. By the end of it I was crying - the character development throughout the book was incredible