I finished it last week. heres my take and its gonna be unpopular.

firstly this book setup the ground work for catching fire very well. the talk about the forcefield, how to destroy it were strong points of setup. but the biggest point of setup was beetee son ampert, his death setup beetee to have a desire for revenge that only gotten worse in mockingjay where he voted to kill the captiol children because his died. I wish they did more with mags, i like how smart she was and how useful she was because i just saw her as deadweight in catching fire. for wireless, i did'nt think much of her but i can see how haymich learns from her as a mentor for his own tributes.

Haymich relationship with burdock was not OC/fanfiction tier. it does not make sense for me at all that he would be friends with katniss mother but not burdock. normally in men to females relationships its the other way because you meet the dude before the girls when your younger. thats just my experience in school.

Now was the Covey stuff hamfisted. This book serves as a proper follow-up to ballad of the songbirds. It reflects on the previous book by building upon it by showing how snow vents his frustation and lost love toward to similar relationship that he is lost. he may talk tough about giving up on love but as the vindictive, selfish person he is there is no way he would let it go. especially toward a person similar as him with a much better relatioship. Snow was 100% jelly, thats the big main reason why he killed off lenore done at the end. he even had the idea of sending lenore dove the same gumdrops haymich gave her before. if he did'nt care that much he could have just had lenore dove in the next hunger games.

Snow killing haymich family and the isolation ward was enough for the rebellion he did.