Unpopular opinion apparently but I really enjoyed the experience of this book and I don't think all of the hate it got was warranted. Maybe it was because I listened to it on audiobook so it didn't feel as slow but almost the entire time I was intrigued and invested in the story.
I think the only complaint I can really agree with is that the pacing toward the end of the book seemed a little off and I can agree that it was a bit rushed but honestly, it didn't even bother me that much.

I think the biggest thing I enjoyed about this book was the history of Panem we got and the history of the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games that was the beginning of the Hunger Games we see in the original trilogy. Even if I didn't like the rest of the book, I think reading the first half for that alone would have been worth it for me. I was fascinated and intrigued as well as horrified the whole time. What was incredibly horrifying in the original story becomes even more so here.

I don't believe Suzanne Collins was ever trying to make Snow a likable or redeemable character. I don't think she was trying to make a swoon-worthy romance either with him and Lucy Grey. I think the point of this book was to show how a person could go from bad, to even worse. To show how the small pieces of humanity in Snow could have set his life on a different path if things had been just a little bit different. I thought every second was interesting and of course, we know where he ends up and what happens ultimately but I was invested the whole time to see how he got there.

I also loved seeing the parallels and the references to the original trilogy. Those were really fun to pinpoint and see.

Overall I thought the was a fascinating book and despite many people's disagreement, I think it adds value to the original trilogy and the world we see in that and adds insight into how Snow acts in the original trilogy to.