sarahrhanks's reviews
54 reviews

It’s a really fun graphic novel (and the first one I’ve ever read), like most people I know it from the movie and was not disappointed. The art style is great and it’s a funny, light read

Really interesting for the first 50 pages or so, hits a bit of a snag and then continues until about the 100 page mark. From there the book became more of a slog, with a couple shining moments. I didn’t connect to the characters at all and they felt really one dimensional (especially Lila’s character, I mean could she be anymore of a ‘I’m not like other girls because I’m tough and poor” character?). The world building isn’t really there and the magic system is kind of cool, too bad it’s not explored until it’s necessary for the plot. This book might be a bit more of a 2.5, but I’m comfortable only giving it 2 stars on here.

I enjoyed Snow’s pov, he’s a pretty terrible person (no surprise there), but interesting to read about (and from the perspective of). I really enjoyed the first two parts of the book, but I felt the third part was seriously lacking (and felt quite adjacent to the first part of the story, if it weren’t for the contrived romance, there wouldn’t even had been a third part). I could go on for days about my issue with with “romance”, but I’ll refrain. I still can’t tell if Collins wanted the reader to be wary of them the whole time, or if I was just very put off by their dynamic, the power imbalance, and Snow’s constant referral of Lucy Gray as “his”. Speaking of Lucy Gray, she felt very one dimensional to me (and for lack of a better term she felt like a manic pixie dream girl, until the very end). The climax of the book takes an odd turn into psychological thriller and her character becomes more of a ‘phantom’ and she becomes more mysterious, but for 2/3 of this book she’s essentially just exists for Snow to have someone to ‘like’ from the Districts. The Covey also felt very off to me, something about ‘happy vagabond musicians who aren’t Capitol but also aren’t District’ just doesn’t sit well with me. The book was quite predictable as well, nothing really came as a surprise other than Snow becoming a peacekeeper, and the strange tonal shift at the end I mentioned earlier. Also, and this is nitpicky, but there’s a LOT of songs in this book, which I’ve come to realize is just not something I’m a fan of (it takes me out of the moment and the songs never impact me in the same way as the characters). Collins can TELL me that a song is a heartbreaking ballad, but I don’t feel anything when I’m just reading the words on the page. (I do think it’d be cool if someone added music to all the lyrics, but as a not musically inclined reader, it’s not a great read. All in all (to end this disjointed ‘review’), I enjoyed the book, but it wasn’t really anything spectacular. There were interesting characters (Sejanus and Dr. Gaul were particularly were two of my favorites to read about), and impactful moments (Jessup’s death/ Lucy Gray’s reaction, how the Capitol punished Marcus for attempting to escape the Hunger Games, and Sejanus’s hanging), but on the whole the book was merely fine.