Decent book, but kind of overrated

3,5 stars

After reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I was so happy to see the return of the pace. This book had the action and story progression of the first books, which was a relief. At last it had characters I could care about again too. I was pleasantly surprised by how many familiar names were brought back (especially Wiress, I love her) and to get more of a glimpse into their lives/pasts. The new characters were very enjoyable too (though I wish Wyatt had had some more exposure).

I enjoyed it a lot, but not as much as the first three books. I think the main reasons are:

1. it lacked emotional and moral depth in my honest opinion. During the first book, your constantly reminded by Katniss how the Careers/other hostile tributes are victims too. In SOTR, I feel like every Career is just painted as a dumb brute with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. A lot of the mental turmoil Katniss goes through in the 74th Hunger Games is replaced with an abundance of mutts who are just there for shock value at a certain point. Some people probably loved that, but I wished they'd focused more on things like fatigue, long-term impact of bodily injury, dehydration, starvation... a bit of realism I guess. Also a bit less plot convenience.

2. Haymitch doesn't really have a lot of personality in this one. Which is really unfortunate, because I loved him in every other book. I understand he's bound to be a different person before all of his trauma, but I feel like his only defining personality traits in SOTR is being in love and wanting to do the right thing/wanting justice. He isn't all to interesting. The rest of the characters make up for it though.

3. I really struggled to take the romance in this one seriously (and it gets mentioned A LOT). I mean, they're both barely 16 years old and talking about eternal love and soulmates and stuff. I never really got invested in their bond because you just dont get all that much context to it. Or I'm not enough of a romantic soul for this.

4. Lastly, you already know the ending to this book. Haymitch already spoiled it in Catching Fire. You know everyone dies. It takes away a lot of the tension.

Again, I think this one is way better than TBOSAS and it had its moments where it genuinely had my mouth hang open, but in the end, I don't really feel like it adds a lot to the previous books.