This one felt more brutal than previous books, but also had more heart and human-ness. The propaganda themes were a bit heavy handed - but looking at the US right now, maybe we need more heavy handedness. We should pay attention to the themes of manipulation of narratives in the media....!

I was wondering why we even needed this book, since we basically knew what happened - but turns out that what we knew about Haymitch's games before was propaganda! And Suzanne Collins still managed to throw in some fun twists and turns. I loved the characterizations of the younger versions of characters we know, and love the new ones as well. And, it answers a lot of questions like "why didn't the districts fight back for 74 years?" I thought the book was well thought out and well done!