I am having a hard time settling on a rating for this one but I'm going to go with 4.25 stars because it was a super engaging read. However, I was disappointed with what I felt like were missed opportunities. Rather than showing the consequences of being a victor over time, most of the page time was devoted to games we already knew the outcome of, so the stakes didn't feel as real, plus much of the action was repetitive or convenient. (Why do some people get tailor-made deaths but not Haymitch?) There were a LOT of cameos/references to the other books, which got over-the-top quickly and often also stretched believability (like why would Katniss not know her dad was best friends with Haymitch?). The romance was very surface-level to me. Still, Collins knows how to keep us turning the pages, and there were emotional punches for sure.