Emily

Truly a classic, The Hunger Games holds up beautifully to rereading, both in terms of its message still (unfortunately) being highly relevant and in terms of rereading a book I first encountered as a teen as an adult. I think I even like it more as an adult than I did as a teen.

The good:

• Fascinating world, extremely creative. I really appreciated how the author thought through and modified swearing, idioms, etc, to more accurately fit the creatures in this world.
• Very intriguing plot which kept me guessing the whole time.
• Competent, reasonably funny characters who were enjoyable to read. People who like witty banter will like this one.

The less good:

• The character voices weren't as distinct as I'd have liked. At one point I had to put the book down mid-chapter and when I came back I had to go back several pages to determine whose viewpoint I was reading. I give a slight pass to this given how many viewpoint characters there were -- it's not great, but with that many characters, it's more understandable it would be with just two or three.
• The "I suddenly understood what was going on after seeing something new, but I'm not going to tell you what I saw or what it means" thing was kinda okay for building tension the first time. By the third it was absolutely infuriating. Thankfully it was confined to the last third of the book so I didn't have to put up with it long.

The upshot: I need the next book now, please.

Solid urban fantasy.

I would have liked a bit more detail on some of the topics, though I understand the author's intent was to show the massive breadth of the issue rather than do a deep delve.