It wasn't bad but it felt mostly quite pointless. Although the idea of a prequel where a young President Snow starts out young and naive and falls to the dark side of morality to become the evil tyrant that he is in The Hunger Games is interesting, this book delivered it in only an adequate way.
This is especially disappointing as The Hunger Games book had an emotionally engaging story for young me, which probably fuelled the disconnect I felt towards reading this book set from a young privileged Coriolanus Snow's perspective (honestly, I hated Snow throughout this book and his decisions).
But overall it wasn't bad and was entertaining enough to keep me reading (except the hundred or so pages set during the military school, which were quite dull until the very end).
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UPDATE: I finished this book four days ago and even though the pacing had issues it was the character relationship and differences between Snow and Lucy Gray that stayed in my head.
Snow is ultimately the kind of privileged person where throughout the book, even though he has struggled in life, he truly believes that he DESERVES his privilege and the greatness that the Snow family is 'entitled' too. That's pretty much Snow in a nutshell really, entitled.
Lucy Gray represents the polar opposite to Snow's perspective, believing that humans really shouldn't be segregated and put into cages (wild theory there...), but becomes solely the object of Snow's desire. To the point where he literally sees her as property.
Snow's lack of empathy and emotional thought for other people is frustrating to read but makes sense from the perspective of someone conditioned so think this way. A citizen of the capital who believes in dynasty above almost everything else and comes to that nasty conclusion about his thoughts on the necessity of war and the hunger games.