Ethan R

90/100

Throughout the whole thing I was consistently pleasantly surprised. I really think this is up there with Mockingjay as one of, if not the best Hunger Games book. This thing is really long, five hundred pages, and it does drag in some parts— however, it always stops dragging and when it picks up it's very hard to put down, so it wasn't a huge issue to me. I loved Lucy Gray, seriously one of my favorite Hunger Games characters ever. She just radiated so much swag and energy. Since she is the love interest of the book and a singer, there are many passages of song in this novel, and I'm a fan of most of them. They get better as it goes on, I think, so while the lyrics kind of variy in writing quality, it barely matters, especially considering the glimpses of really nice lyrics that are present at times.
Now, it's no secret that the main character of this book is a young President Snow, so I think I can claim without it being a spoiler that Coriolanus is a horrible person. What's surprising, though, is that he comes from not only humble beginnings, but is actually a pretty good person. His father, now dead, was an honored general in Panem's first civil war, and he feels like he has to personally continue the glory that the Snow name holds. This, likely along with his nature, causes him to view human beings as tools for success rather than real people with inherent value. This is apparent early on if you pay attention, but this quality really starts to come out when he is presented with opportunities for power. I won't spoil the insanity that happens in the last couple chapters of this book, but it's fucked up, and I genuinely just hate this guy lol. The thing is, though, it's such a realistic feeling depiction of sociopaths and how they view themselves. His ego grows and grows to a nauseating degree, he uses everyone he knows, and he has a blatant disregard for human life. The more he justifies these things internally, the worse he becomes, and ultimately— you may consider this a spoiler— he throws away the opportunity for love, instead pursuing his own arbitrary standard for success.

94/100

First of all, if you have the choice, don't buy the Maple Classics version of this book— there are printing errors and there's a spoiler on the back cover.

Orwell's 1984 is my favorite book of all time, one with the honor of being my only 100/100. So, how does Animal Farm compare? Thematically, it's very similar, albeit slightly less broad; however, this book, I'd say, is more original in concept. It's the story of a group of farm animals rebelling against their human leader and establishing a new farm led entirely by animals, renamed from Manor Farm to Animal Farm. At first, this farm is run democratically, with weekly policy debates where everyone can voice their opinions, though debates and conversations are dominated by the more intelligent species, namely the pigs. Two clear, for a lack of a better word, political figures emerge: pigs Snowball and Napoleon, who never fail to disagree with each other on every policy imaginable (sound familiar?)

The rest of the book documents the descent of Animal Farm into a totalitarian state, written to mirror the descent of the USSR and be an allegory for the Russian revolution, including events such as the prosecution and killing of political rivals, the manipulation of facts and history for the benefit of the ruling class, class inequality, and perhaps the most striking and prevalent, the abandonment of revolutionary principles. I won't detail this descent; the specifics don't really matter, but basically every character, event or idea in the book can be mapped to a person, concept or event that happened for real in the USSR, and I think the book does a spectacular job at not only showing at every stage in the devolution into oligarchal rule what happens and what the warning signs would be, but also why people didn't revolt or reject the government. The book shows that it wasn't as simple as bad guys taking power and ruling with iron fists— it's a dirty, long and manipulative process that the population is on board with 100% of the way. Lastly, I love the characters. Animals are cute and all of them felt real and I wanted what was best for them. I consistently love the details that Orwell put into his fiction and the way things play out— it always makes for a very special experience.

85/100
Surprisingly great. I was always on board, but I had a couple issues while reading. However, the twist at the end completely fixed every problem I ever had- THAT is how you write a truly unexpected plot twist. It makes you look at the entire story completely differently and makes a surprising amount of sense. Though I will say if you're going to read this you need to watch death not first. Not only does it rely on you having an understanding of the events of the anime, as well as answering questions you'll have after finishing it, AND it spoils the anime several times, but the show is also simply even better.

89/100
Mockingjay is the best of the original trilogy, and while I haven't read either prequel in full yet, I highly doubt they will top it. This book is great. I love the way it focuses on the lore of the series, as well as the civil war that breaks out. This book is the best because it does what Catching Fire did great (read my review of that book and much of it applies here,) but adds an extremely engaging war with thematic purpose, Katniss' escalating involvement in the conflict, and so much drama that really feels meaningful and engaging. You have to read it to get why the drama is so good, at least to me, but it just is. I really admire how the series can rehash the “katniss gets mad at gale or peeta and then realizes she's being kinda a douche” thing several times and always have it be good. I keep going back to this, but the war is just so well played out. It's another thing you just need to see. The pacing is flawless throughout basically the whole thing, but the main thing I want to talk about is the ending. So, Prim's dead. Huh. I hated this decision at first. The entire series happened because Katniss wanted to keep her sister alive. So why, in the climax of the story, is she killed in a civilian bombing by her own side of the war? Well, it's to show that President Coin is really not that much better than Snow, their enemy. When Katniss finds this out, this gives her the initiative she needs to assassinate Coin, which is an extremely powerful move. In my opinion, this decision is to show that she doesn't conform to a particular side, person or country. Katniss does anything to protect what she loves, even when the Rebels helped her in a lot of ways. Because again, it's not about sides; the decision was about Coin in particular.
I want to say that I have an issue with the ending. The vote on having one last hunger games to punish those who subjected their citizens to the hunger games. This was stupid. The choice is obviously not to waste money and human suffering on petty revenge. The Rebels aren't necessary better than this, but Katniss absolutely is, and for some unexplained reason she votes yes. She wants to round up a bunch of Capital officials and have them as tributes in another hunger games. Don't ask me why. I don't want to give the impression that the ending is bad; it's generally great, and every second of it was very enjoyable except for the blemish I just mentioned. I won't go on for longer, but I'll close this by saying that the series is really great and deserved the attention it got, although I feel like it was popular for all the wrong reasons. While most know it for its love triangle, fights to the death and its popularization of the teen dystopian genre, I think its strengths lie in its bursting personality, mastering of plot structure and character, its accurate depiction of the human condition during times of poverty, and later war.

85/100
Catching Fire is a definite improvement on the first book. While The Hunger Games had a lot of general appeal, I felt that Catching Fire was much more human in its presentation of what was happening to the characters. The victory tour portion near the beginning did drag a little, but it really wasn't long, I mostly just think that the things that Suzanne Collins thought would make things interesting during that part didn't work because we already knew the Capital sucks. Everything past this good, though; whereas the human elements of the first book felt slightly manufactured, this did not because it more closely relates to real world situations. (I understand that the existence of the hunger games is supposed to mirror the iraq war and how it was portrayed in the media, but the concept still doesn't closely relate to what happens to real people in practice.) This book has depictions of fear and violence that mirror real life in ways that the drama-focused angle of the first book can't. I'll say that there is a thematic reason for this, in that you realize over time that the threats she's been dealing with do show up in some form in our own world, but the credit still goes to books 2 and 3 for conveying that theme. The Games portion of this book is very well done, but I find the middle area more compelling, all the way from Gale's whipping to Katniss' preparation to enter the Games. The drama is just extremely well done and captivating. The Games portion is smart, much more smartly written than anything in the first book, and the twist at the end is something I did NOT expect, that had me rereading the ending to really realize the magnitude of what it meant. It explained some things that I initially was weary about and was just a good way to wrap things up and make the stage for the finale. I do want to say that there are a couple parts I don't like. this applies to the first book arguably more than it does here, but I mention it here and not in my The Hunger Games review because it has a much better reason not to exist here, and it's the convenient life-saving that happens during the Games. I understand that there was a need to keep Peeta and Katniss alive that was understood by the ally group, but it got a bit eye-rolling, especially at the part where she's about to be eaten by monkeys and suddenly they all die. Like wow, cool way to solve the problem Katniss, you did absolutely nothing and just got away. That's not frustrating, predictable or contrived at all. The reason I say this has a much better reason not to be present in this book is because to me, its lense is supposed to be less manufactured and more raw, exploring the real, grounded consequences of the superficial nature of Panem's government. This scene, while still kind of sucking, would be excusable in the first book because it's still in the “fight to the death + drama” era of the series. Shit like this shouldn't be happening 3/4 into the second book. Overall though, it's a great read. I admire its structure, presentation of character drama, its depiction of the warning signs of the revolution and the shining personality as well as emotion that Katniss' narration brings.