I didn’t read Ballads of Songbirds and Snakes because I could not care less about Snow’s backstory, but Haymitch?? Absolutely, had to jump on board and it felt SO nostalgic to be back reading a Hunger Games novel. I must have read these books initially when I was maybe 13 and they had me in a chokehold. Given that I devoured this fairly chunky book in about 2 days, I’d say they still do. 

I knew this would be a tearjerker, and while I didn’t shed any actual tears until the epilogue, it definitely has serious emotional heft to it! I did think the pace felt a bit weird once they’d been in the arena for a day or two, like it didn’t flow as well as the rest of the book. But still, excellent storytelling. I loved the crossovers with the original books, and I genuinely would just love for Suzanne Collins to write a book for every Hunger Games 🥲 It was amazingly terrible to learn why Haymitch is the way he is. The film is going to wreck me.