by Sarah Statz Cords
I am one of those awful people who often reads bestsellers and well-reviewed books simply to dislike them. Well, I don’t set out to dislike them, but I find that I frequently do. Take, for instance, my complicated relationship with the novels The Help (by Kathryn Stockett) and A Gate at the Stairs (by Lorrie Moore). I read them because they were both getting a lot of buzz, and I disliked them both. Intensely.*
So why don’t I just stay away from bestsellers and the big buzz titles? Well, for one thing, I rather like knowing what people are reading, what they’re talking about, and what books are selling (because it’s a safe bet that publishers will publish a lot more books LIKE the biggest sellers, because they are in business, after all). I also sometimes get a Book Snob charge out of not agreeing with the career book critics and reviewers. But mainly I keep reading them because when I’m wrong, I’m WRONG. And nothing is more thrilling than not wanting to read a book because everyone else has loved it, and then falling in love with it yourself.
This happened to me this week with Suzanne Collins’s YA novel The Hunger Games, which blew me away. (After polishing it off I had to go out immediately and get the sequel, Catching Fire.) Have you read this novel? It’s set in a (maybe not too distant?) dystopian future, in which the ruling powers of Panem, ensconced carefully in their Capitol, keep the rest of the population under control by demanding “tributes” from different regions of the country to compete to the death in the annual Hunger Games. The tributes are, of course, people’s children–every child between the age of 12 and 18 has their name entered in a drawing, and each region of Panem has to send a male and female tribute to the games. But when Katniss Everdeen’s younger sister is chosen, she does the unthinkable–and volunteers to enter the Games in her place.
I couldn’t be more pleased that this book turned out to live up to its hype, and then some. So how’s about it? We’re heading into the weekend–how about having some fun? Have you read any books lately that you expected not to like, but which won you over? Have you read any books you expected to love, but which left you wanting more? Tell us all about them!
*I can tell you that as a secret. Of course, if a reader wanted help finding readalikes for either book I’d enthusiastically try and help them find something.









