This is a very silly book. It’s like a zine with lots of random things in it. It’s not the kind of book you can read through from the first page to the last (I guess technically you could, but you wouldn’t want to…) It’s really more of an oddity to pick up and read a bit of, then put down. 

For readers who enjoyed The Hunger Games trilogy and wondered about Haymitch’s back story, here it is!

My favorite random detail was when someone called him “Ham mitch” and it sounded like Ham (sand)wich.

I guessed that his drunkenness was a direct result of his horrible experience in the hunger games and beyond. But reading this, all the evil things the Capitol (and Snow) did to him made me hate them even more.

It was a fun read, however much of the story was eerily heteronormative and pro-Christianity.

This book really clarified for me what specific ingredients in processed foods  (like xanthan gum, polysorbate-80, and carrageenan) were doing to my body. I knew they were "bad" but I didn't know why. They have been found to alter your gut microbiome, cause inflammation, which can increase risk of chronic illnesses. This info isn't widely known because of... capitalism! Large corporations making big money on Ultra Processed Foods don't want you to know how bad these (and many other) ingredients are for your body and for the environment. The corporations themselves can't be trusted to monitor themselves or be trustworthy to create "safe" food, so it's really up to governments to regulate it. It's naive to think that the (processed) food we can buy in a grocery store is safe. It really isn't. (And that is sad!) Conclusion: cut out all the ultra processed food from your diet. Read labels. Don't put anything in your body that has ingredients in it that you can't make in your home kitchen.