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1.) The Hunger Games ★★★★★
2.) Catching Fire ★★★★

Hello, I am here to finish off my breakdown reviews of The Hunger Games Trilogy! And ironically enough, Mockingjay was the last book I read in 2020! I will say, I feel like the series does get a little less enjoyable as I progressed through the trilogy all these years later, but I still think it is a solid series and I truly do think The Hunger Games itself is a masterpiece. But please use caution, because this breakdown will be filled with spoilers for each and every chapter of this book!

“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”

➽ Chapter One:
District 12 is gone, but Buttercup the cat is alive. Truly this opening chapter was so dark and really set the tone for this entire book, and Snow’s rose? Truly so scary and horrifying and a good reminder at how evil he actually is. Peeta is gone, and Katniss is officially with the previously thought dead District 13.

➽ Chapter Two:
Peeta is a guest being interviewed by Caesar for the world to see. And they are also showing the bombing of District 12 over and over to remind people what happens with you rebel against the capitol. We also get to see the hidden, unground District 13 base, and how they are very ready to rebel against the capitol and nothing will stop them. Katniss is going to officially be the Mockingjay to help rally as much support as they can get, while also trying to instill hope for a brighter future.

➽ Chapter Three:
We get to see what it is like to live in this new world that is the hidden District 13 and what is left of District 12, and we are easily seeing that things are very unfair here too.

➽ Chapter Four:
And Katniss is even starting to see how President Coin might not be too much different than President Snow, just a different guise for their evil.

➽ Chapter Five:
Katniss is getting fed up with always being used as a tool for someone else, but she finally has her bow back and is hoping the make the best of what she has left, even with Coin making her say lines to instill hope for the new war that is beginning.

➽ Chapter Six:
But it is getting harder and harder for Katniss to rally the districts without Peeta, because she has never been the best speaker, especially compared to him, and especially because him being held captive is impacting her so greatly. But truly, the foreshadowing in this chapter is very insane.

➽ Chapter Seven:
A hovercraft takes Katniss to see the sick people at a hospital, and the capitol bombs them immediately after. Gale and Katniss fight, and we start to see that they are believing two different stories, but Katniss and her anger at the capitol is growing and growing and because its on public display it is automatically rallying more and more people.

➽ Chapter Eight:
The Cinna mentions truly rip my heart out every time. But Katniss also is sneaking watching Peeta’s clips that the capitol is showing and the more and more distrust of District 13 is building and building.

➽ Chapter Nine:
The infamous hanging tree song, that still makes me a bit uncomfortable, but we get to really meet Katniss’ camera crew and see the torture they have also endured. Katniss and Gale reminisce about when they were kids, but Katniss is truly proving to the reader this was never a love triangle more and more because she deadass is like “I like that Gale likes to hunt” and it makes me truly giggle. Also, Peeta is getting tortured for information. :[

➽ Chapter Ten:
But Peeta still is able to warn District 13 of an incoming attack. So much foreshadowing with Prim, but Gale helps her find Buttercup and they make it safely to the evacuation zone before the first bomb hits. Katniss and Prim finally have a moment just for them and just between them and it really broke my heart because I have read this book before, hahaha! And Katniss and her trauma and anxiety making her feel like she is having a heart attack? Heartbreak again.

➽ Chapter Eleven:
More bombings are happening, but this time it is just to ensure that Katniss stays off television so she and her message will stop giving other rebels hope! Katniss and Finnick finally get to talk and Gale is annoyed with Finnick for no reason other than Gale is truly stupid and the bane of my existence. But Katniss leaves the bunker and Snow has left her more roses and every time it gives me goosebumps in the most disgusting way. Truly harrowing each time. But the resistance has decided they are going to do a rescue mission for Peeta and Annie! Also, let me just note that Katniss is mean to Buttercup in this chapter and it annoyed me too, lmaoooo!

➽ Chapter Twelve:
Finnick goes on the broadcast and talks about how he was sex trafficked as a child alongside many of the victors of the hunger games, and how Snow would kill their loved ones if they did not “willingly” participate. After, they are able to rescues Annie, Johanna, and Peeta. But… Peeta, because of the torture and brainwashing he has endured, tries to kill Katniss.

➽ Chapter Thirteen:
We get to learn a bit more about Peeta’s torture and the tracker jacker venom they used to “highjack” his memories.

➽ Chapter Fourteen:
They send Katniss to District 2 and fake Gale love triangle angst ensues.

➽ Chapter Fifteen:
Rebels start fighting other rebels and Gale is just… stupid. And Katniss gets shot.

➽ Chapter Sixteen:
Katniss is healing up slowly after what happened in District 2, and she is helping Annie find a wedding dress with the things she still has of Cinna’s, so that she can get married to Finnick finally. Please, I am crying.

➽ Chapter Seventeen:
Katniss is getting stronger and stronger. This chapter really shows how different everyone lives and tries to heal after the hunger games they’ve been a part of. And Peeta just has so much anger in him still.

➽ Chapter Eighteen:
They are all fake practicing storming the capitol, with fake gas and everything. We get to learn how Johanna was tortured (with water) and how that has very much impacted every day of her life since. But they all realize that this will be their last arena ever, but it fills them with hope to storm the capitol for real.

➽ Chapter Nineteen:
Peeta’s memories are reconstructed and he goes with them to end this once and for all. But a bomb gets triggered once they are in the tunnel.

➽ Chapter Twenty:
An emergency broadcast announces to the world that Katniss, Peeta, Finnick, and everyone else are dead, and this could work in their advantage because Snow will not be expecting them, but they have to make it out of the tunnel with the mysterious black gel.

➽ Chapter Twenty-One:
They have their first death with Boggs :[ and they get to see this funeral for Katniss being broadcasted while they are all trapped and not trusting anyone.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Two:
Peeta is whispering “Katniss” all creepy-like, but they are able to break through this tunnel that they were trapped in with lizard-like people monsters. But… Finnick dies protecting them and it truly is the most sad and unnecessary death in this book and him and Cinna just deserved so much better. But Katniss kisses Peeta and I’m still giggling that people think this series has a believable love-triangle.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Three:
Katniss gives Gale stitches, and then Gale and Peeta have some sort of weird heart to heart together. This story really doesn’t have the “who will Katniss pick in the end” vibe so many people lead you to believe it does. We also meet the “tiger woman” and I was side eying a little while reading about her ten years later. But they are ready to finally go head to head with the capitol once and for all.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Four:
Listen, I don’t mean to laugh, but Gale trying to get Katniss to shoot him and her being like “no, you’ll be fine” and lets the capitol take him sent me a little bit, I am sorry. But we get to see how Snow has tried to protect himself by barricading the capitol with children, because he is banking on no one being cruel enough to kill them while trying to get him. But, parachutes come and… when I say this is the most harrowing and fucked up thing in this book… I mean it. The way these parachutes have been seen as a symbol of hope and healing for the recipients who get them in the hunger games, so the kids are happy to see them…. Only to have them explode and kill them, like… truly I don’t even have words for how heartbreaking that is to read and think about. But then, to add more heartbreak, Katniss sees a braid and a duck tail and… I truly am crying typing this. All this, everything, Katniss being selfless, Katniss willing to do everything to protect her sister, Katniss proving over and over she will do anything, only for the resistance to kill her so heartlessly. I truly weep. Prim’s death truly will always stick with me, and it is why I was impacted so viscerally when rereading The Hunger Games earlier this year and seeing the foreshadowing in that very first chapter.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Five:
Katniss is told that she is “lucky” to be alive after the bombs detonated, but she truly feels lost and that everything feels a little hopeless even now at the end of this war. Snow is to be executed, but Katniss visits him and she realizes that he is not the one who killed the children and Prim.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Six:
Katniss is questioning everything, including who chose to put a 13-year-old in combat. She goes to talk to Haymitch, but he is drunk. Katniss is stuck with her own thoughts, thinking about what life would have been like without the games, and if her and Gale ran away from District 12. She is also very much questioning if it was Gale’s bomb that killed Prim, and she knows she will question that for the rest of her life. But once she thinks at least everything is over, Coin states that she wants one last hunger games, for revenge, and it will star the kids of the people who were for the capitol. Katniss is supposed to be the one to finally execute Snow, but when her arrow flies, it flies straight into Coin, killing her and her idea for a new plan for evil.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Katniss is captured and thinking of suicide. She learns that the people “crushed” Snow to death, and maybe not ripped him apart like in the movie. But we get to see Katniss grieving and finally feeling like she can grieve unapologetically for everyone she has lost, Prim, Rue, Cinna, Finnick, everyone. We also learn that Annie and Finnick got pregnant before he passed away, and maybe that is a new symbol of hope.

➽ Epilogue:
Katniss and Peeta have two kids, and it took Katniss a very long time to actually have them, even though Peeta really wanted them from the start. The games are still over, but we see the grief and PTSD will always be in their lives. And even though they are trying to do the best for their kids, it haunts them that they are playing on a graveyard they will never fully understand.

Truly, this series is haunting and there are a lot of parallels that can easily and obviously be made to the world we are living in 2020. My heart does go out to Katniss and I do really like her as a character. I do feel like the series got a little less and less enjoyable as they went on, but the basic premise is just so unique and solid and really helped start the dystopian (and YA) surge. And Katniss and Prim’s relationship just really settles heavy in my heart, and it truly makes you think about a lot of things you’d be willing to do for the people you love. I do still giggle at the people who ship Katniss and Gale, because they must really like eating crumbs and my heart goes out to them too. But Finnick and Cinna are truly the brightest shining lights for me, and I’m so sad Suzanne Collins didn’t give us a proper spinoff of their past! But maybe one day.

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Trigger and Content Warnings: torture, death, murder, war themes, blood depiction, talk of (fake) miscarriage, bombings, anxiety depiction, ptsd depiction, loss of a loved one, forced drugging, thoughts of suicide, talk of alcoholism, talk of rape in the past, talk of pedophilia in the past, talk of sex trafficking in the past, and slavery.

Buddy read with Lea! ❤