It's nowhere as engaging as THG trilogy. It felt like it dragged on in the latter half of the book--like it should've been over but there was still quite a bit of the book left. Even though I already knew the ending, I didn't remember any of the details, and I think that didn't help my feeling that it was dragging on. I still don't think it gives us a good take on Snow's character from THG trilogy, but it does a good job of showing us how he started evolving into who he became.