Ballad is an enjoyable book despite it starting off reading like it was auto-generated, especially the character names. Further, I am not a person who can usually tolerate an unsympathetic protagonist. I can barely even handle male protagonists, and young Coriolanus Snow is a selfish fucker.

I bookmarked and highlighted a bunch of passages that show how terrible Coryo (as is selfless cousin calls him) is, in appreciation of how Collins makes the reader have complicated feelings. I'll spare you because I lent my copy to a friend (first time I've shared my library card number, but she'd had the book snatched away by her libe before she could finish it, and it would be months before her turn came up again), and I'd do it again!

Some of the foreshadowing is heavy-handed, but I bet her publisher and editor were on her to give Hunger Games fans a few tastes.