Reading ACC by Charles Dickens was not a particularly fun experience for me, mostly because the story was so predictable that I would never be surprised or taken aback. This is because over the years, there have been hundreds of adaptations of the book, ranging from animated children’s movies to modern retellings and parodies. Because of this, I already knew exactly what was going to happen, which was that Scrooge would be visited by three ghosts, past, present, and future, feel guilty about his behaviour, and ultimately change into a kinder, more generous person. This predictability took a lot away from the experience. Instead of wondering what would happen next, I felt like I was just waiting for events I already expected to happen. Another reason I struggled to enjoy the novel was Dickens’s frequent breaking of the fourth wall through his narrator. The narrator often directly addresses the reader, explains things that don’t necessarily need explaining, or makes jokes and comments about the story itself. It all seemed very meta, and I found it distracting. It pulled me out of the story just as I was beginning to become immersed in it, making the novel feel less like a narrative and more like someone constantly reminding me that I was reading a book (similar to Our Town, but that book was meant to be written that way, so I gave it a pass). Because of these two factors, the extreme familiarity of the plot and the meta-narrator, I found it difficult to fully engage with A Christmas Carol. While I can appreciate its historical importance, moral questions it asks, and its influence on modern Christmas culture, I did not find it enjoyable on a personal level (after all, this is a Personal Response). For me, the story worked better in adaptations, like movies, than in its original written form, where its surprises were already spoiled, and its storytelling style felt dated.