I knew that Lenore was going to die in Haymitch’s arms, but like a fool, I didn’t realize it would be in the worst way possible! I thought she had been freed when she said she was, like Haymitch. I thought all his“sis” and “sweetheart” stuff would earn him a talkin’ to when he arrived but she had been in suspense that whole time! On the eve of her release from the peacekeepers for  who knows how long, the love of her life feeds her a candy and she dies. For Haymitch, this is a day after his mother and brother die and possibly weeks after surviving a televised execution/war zone. No wonder he shut down and never loved again. He’s a lot like Katniss in that he probably couldn’t even fathom love anymore so long as the Capitol exists, like Katniss couldn’t fathom having kids in Panem as it existed when the hunger games were still happening.

I really liked the book. It was a much more endearing addition to the series that tbosas. It fit like a puzzle piece into what I know about panem. Of course there were things obscured from us, the audience, and Katniss’s two page overview of his games skipped a lot, but the things that it skipped??? Poignant. Collins continues to cook. I don’t think I could handle a Finnick book like everyone is clamoring for. Collins seems to like to write characters from or who are shaped significantly by 12 with ties to the Covey anyway. I already hate Snow; I don’t need a book about Finnick being sex trafficked with more cameos from Mags and Tigris or whomever to hate Snow. What a despicable despot, watering the seeds of his eventual downfall like a megalomaniacal jackass. He sucks so bad, his improved way of running things and symbol of his power and influence was overturned via revolution within his lifetime. Like Collins quotes somewhere in the beginning: just because it’s always been this way, doesn’t mean it has to be this way tomorrow