On my earlier reads as a teenager, I didn't like this as much as the others. Now that I'm older I can understand the gravity of tne situation and it's all so devastating, undedstanding how traumatized Katniss and the others were. It shows the horrible results of war and revolutions, propaganda and hope. Not to beat a dead horse, but there is a point to the love triangle and that is made clear in the ending. Maybe knowing the story and what is to come makes certain *moments* even more devastating, like watching a play unfold knowing you can't warn the hero of what is to come. Suzanne Collins might have written the most important series of books about the end of an authoritarian dystopian regime.