The Aggressive Reader

Tag: hungergames

  • Sunrise On the Reaping

    Rating: 5/5

    Spoilers: I’m keeping it short, so I won’t give any spoilers because you all deserve to experience this all by yourselves!

    WOMAN DOWN! WOMAN DOWN! We got a pimp in distress! My heart ACHES! Now that’s what I’m talking about, Suzanne Collins! Bring me back to the heart break and insane after book depression that was brought on as well after The Hunger Games series. Sunrise On the Reaping was all I wanted and more! I craved this writing with A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and was sorely disappointed, but Collins has made her comeback!

    We follow Haymitch Abernathy at age 16, during his turn in the 50th Hunger Games and my emotions were not ready. When I talk about feeling like I want to know these characters and feel for them like in real life, this is what I’m talking ABOUT! Every single character was written so WELL! My heart actually broke for them which is hard for me these days because of how much I read and am introduced to SO MANY different characters. Remembering characters is usually a bust but the tributes of the 2nd Quarter Quell will not easily be forgotten.

    That’s all you get from me because if you are reading this and are also a fan of The Hunger games series, you need to go into this not knowing too much and just off what you know about Haymitch from the original series. You will not be disappointed.

    Thank you for reading and following! I would say happy reading but at this point, you better guard your heart with this one…

  • The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

    Rating: 2/5

    Spoiler level: NOTHING BECAUSE WHAT COULD I SPOIL THAT WOULD ACTUALLY BE INTERESTING?!

    Soooo, I got through it! Well, mostly. I already knew what happened the last one hundred pages so I DNF’d the HELL out of it! I first read this book when it was released in 2020 and couldn’t even get through the first one hundred pages so MASS improvement there. I still have to say…as a huge fan of The Hunger Games series, I was excited to get a villain origin story for Snow but was left so FRIKIN disappointed!

    First things first, why was the writing so dull? Was I the only one that thought that? The Hunger Games series was well written to me but this…THIS Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes just drained my interest so quickly. I continued to read just to see if it got better but again…DISAPPOINTMENT! These characters…I couldn’t have cared less about them and their stories…I have not read a book with characters this dry for a while…even Lucy Gray couldn’t hold my interest. I really expected more from this origin story. I expected to feel the pain of the characters but the only one I felt for was a boy in the games named Reaper who had nothing to do with Snow at all! Again, couldn’t care less about the others.

    We learn about Snow’s past and his hardships with losing his parents during the war, but why did the writing not really do his pain justice? I’m about to use the word again so get over it but it was all just so…dull. I expected more from this book because Suzanne Collins had blown me away before, but this story just wasn’t for me. The odds were not in my favor! I am hoping to be in love with Sunrise on the Reaping, which is coming out tomorrow, March 18th, and I am PUMPED for it! I will be MIA for all of tomorrow because I am ready for Haymitch’s story!

    Happy reading!

    This book is gorgeous though!