354 pages
Chinese language
Published Nov. 6, 2011
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.
All of the feels. All of them. A review for the whole series will be on my blog soon.
It was a good book but not as good as the first. Maybe I just thought it ended without much fanfare? Maybe I was miffed that she ended up with, who I thought, was the wrong person? I don't know. I do know that the ending got a bit crazy and what Katniss did do at the ending was something that I expected. I just thought that the first and second books were fun and pushing towards something bigger in scope. Not hope but a lesson or moral tale. Well, on to the next book.
While I saw a lot of the ending coming, I didn't see it all. Mostly because I make an effort /not/ to try and guess an author's intentions. I thought this book was great, it tied the story together in a way that, in my opinion, justifies the raw and disturbing nature of the story. An excellent read.
The back third of the book picked up the pace and interest again, but the front end really felt pedestrian after the hi-jinks of the arena in the previous two volumes. The story morphed into a standard war against the bad guys with Katniss effectively sidelined (a pity for such an interesting and proactive character). At least it ended kind of happily although some elements felt rushed eg the resolution of the love triangle happened off-stage, and did a certain other secondary character really have to die?
The first half was promising, but the ending was raher disappointing. I think the author might have overreached in tying things up into a neat no-more-sequels package.
