As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves. When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.

I need to admit here that I wanted to read it since this book was announced to be publish, and now I finally did. Without making the intro longer than it needs to be, lets get into the review.

I need to mention here because I was kind of disappoint in this book because after reading “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” in 2022, I was expected to love this book as much as I did “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”. But I cant say that I did. Yes I liked this book a lot but I didn’t love it. 

The plot here was very good here, but there were times I felt like this book was dragging a little bit especially at the beginning of this book which really made uninterested in this book. Since it took so damn long to give us the action here. But overall I had a lot of fun reading this book because it was interesting and enjoyable.

At the same time the action we actually got in this book felt at times very unrealistic. Before you comment that it is a fictional book, yes am aware of this. But I personally prefer the fantasy, utopia books to be at least somehow realistic. And as I’ve said, there are a handful of moments where this book abandoned all logic and realism. 

The characters in this book, were pretty okay. I really loved Haymitch in this book because he is an incredible character in this book and it really gives us more of his background and why he is such an underrated character in the main trilogy of the hunger games books. President Snow was also an incredible character in this book because we learn more about him after the events of becoming the president but before the first book in the original trilogy of hunger games.

I need to say that Haymitch didn’t feel like the same character we see in the original hunger games trilogy. Because he is very stand-offish and very calculated in this book  which I don’t remember about him from the original hunger games trilogy. It can be just my faulty memory when it comes to books I’ve read 5 ish years ago because in the 5 years time period since I read the original hunger games books, I have read a lot of books and because of this my memory can get a little blurry on some details.

When it comes to the rest of the characters I gotta say that they didn’t land well with me personally. Because I felt like they didn’t have a lot of personalities to them. I felt like the only reason why the side characters existed was to either die in the hunger games or be side characters no one really cared about. Of course it can be just me being too harsh on the side characters but thats just my thoughts which I had about the characters in this book. 

The writing style was pretty good, not as good as it was in “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes”, but it still was pretty good. The writing style plays well with the storyline of this book which I really like. 

I gotta admit that the story has some very tragic moments which will live rent free in my head for a while because of how fucked up they were. I really linked a lot those tragic moments because it gave this book another depth if you will. But they also show how fucked up President Snow is and I personally have a love and hate relationship with President Snow. Because on one side I really love him because he is a very good and memorable character but on the other side I really hate him because of all the fucked up things he have done.

I Give This Book 4 / 5