Synopsis
Against all odds,
Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute
Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved,
happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and longtime
friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds
her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely.
And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion
that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
Much to her shock,
Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what
scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should
try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on
the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If
they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in
their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying
- Goodreads.com
My Review
A couple of months ago, while I
was working. I had a patient; a girl about 10 years old come in for a dressing
change. As I went about my task of cleaning and dressing the wound, I asked her
how she had cut her hand. Her mother who was standing next to her, rolled her
eyes sighing, clearly unimpressed...” Go on Hailey” she said, “Tell the nurse how
you did it”. Hailey looked up at me and grinned, clearly oblivious to her
mother’s disapproval. “I cut it while playing the hunger games” she said with
enthusiasm “Me and my cousin were in the bush behind the house. We were tired
and hungry, after fighting other tributes, and we had finally found a good
place to camp for the night. So I pulled out my pocket knife, and started
cutting some onions for soup. But then we heard a sound behind us... we were
being ambushed...we didn’t know what to do, stand and fight or run for our
lives...and that’s when I accidentally cut my hand” she finished beaming with
pride.
THIS is what I love most about
this series. It’s that it inspires young minds to be adventurous, creative and
play with imagination. Too many kids today sit inside playing play-station and
computer and not enough run around outside playing Hunger Games, and Harry
Potter, and Transformers (or whatever stuff kids watch these days). While
reading this book I was drawn back into my own childhood, of playing in the
bush behind my friend’s houses, hiding as stowaways on ships destined for
exotic continents, fighting enemy foes with our make shift bow and arrows, and
pretending to live off the land. * sigh* I miss those days...
Now onto the actual review...I absolutely
LOVED this book, even more than the first. There were so many twists and turns,
and there were a lot of things I didn’t see coming. The story is fast paced, if
slightly rushed at times, which I didn’t mind considering quite a few things
ie. Preparation for the games, opening ceremony, interviews had already been
fully explained in the first book. If
you like being kept on your toes, this is definitely the book for you. When I
wasn’t reading this book, I was thinking about it, which is not common ground
for me. I found myself waking up in the night, and instead of rolling over to
go back to sleep, stealthily (or not so stealthily according to my partner)
turning on my lamp to devour the words on the pages... a new meaning to
midnight munchies.
The ending was great, and left
with a cliff-hanger, which I don’t mind too much considering I don’t have to
wait a whole year for the next installment. Overall, it’s one of those series
which should be on your read before I die list, because trust me you don’t want
to miss out on this series and regret it for the rest of your (after) life.
My rating: 4.75/5
