When I found out one of the books for my A Level (around age 17-18, mostly to qualify for university studies) English Lit class was going to be some weird French book by an author I'd never heard of, I was honestly kind of disappointed. When I read The Stranger by Camus, I found it to be one of the most impactful books I've read in my life, honestly. No idea if it's just one of those "right book at the right time" situations, but where Holden Caulfield didn't resonate with me in the same class, Mersault really did and it led to a deeper interest in Camus' writing.

I can't really recall any examples of the opposite happening: maybe books that weren't as good as I expected based on popular opinion or specific recommendations from people, but that isn't really the same thing (and I usually still find something to enjoy in those cases, even if not as much as I wanted).

It's difficult when you have obligations to read other things, but finding the right thing helps more than you can imagine.

While knee deep in my A levels, I started reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? out of curiosity, which I think might have been the last book I read where I genuinely got that sensation of not being able to put it down: where I needed to try to wean myself off of it to do other things and I sat with genuine anxiety and suspense waiting to read another chapter.

When I read LoTR and SoIaF on the other hand? I'm sorry, but I frequently had to hype myself up to get the energy to read them a lot of the time. I wouldn't say those books were bad, but they definitely weren't great reads on top of my school work at the time and in the middle they began to feel much more like an obligation I was putting on myself.

It's all well and good to go for classics or things people have recommended you, but it's easiest if you're hooked on whatever you're reading.

TBF, his intentions were likely to try and escape through the relatively porous Belarusian border into a third country like Lithuania.