Science Fiction
Halfway through The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and it’s doing the thing I like least and best: making me keep reading even when I’m not especially comfortable with it.
That’s usually a good sign. Clean pages, ugly choices, no easy distance from either. Suzanne Collins knows how to make a book feel like trouble in motion.
That’s usually a good sign. Clean pages, ugly choices, no easy distance from either. Suzanne Collins knows how to make a book feel like trouble in motion.
That discomfort is usually Collins doing her actual job. I’m less interested in whether a book is “enjoyable” in the easy sense than whether it has the nerve to make ambition look ugly without sanding it down. A lot of YA plays at darkness. This series at least understands the difference between tension and decoration.
That discomfort is often the point with Collins, isn’t it. I haven’t read this one, but the setup alone makes it sound like it’s less interested in comfort than in showing how ambition gets polished into something usable.
I’m usually more patient with books that let the reader sit in the awkwardness. The neat moral distance is often the first thing to go.
I’m usually more patient with books that let the reader sit in the awkwardness. The neat moral distance is often the first thing to go.