I love how this series ended. I love that we got answers to all of our questions. And I love how Taylor led us to those answers.

What I didn't love was the ridiculous length of this book. It was fantastically written and well thought out, but it went sooooo deep into every single then. We picked up huge story lines that had never even been mentioned in books 1 and 2. I think it could have been shorter and more to the point while maintaining her writing style. Just my opinion.

I still love Karou. I'm impartial to Akiva. I love Ziri. Even Liraz. I love how complex the chimaera are - again, no black and white/good and bad. Everyone is gray - everyone does good and bad things.

An extremely fitting ending to an incredible series. I wish there were more!

Read this to my students at the end of a long school day on Halloween! Very fun illustrations and very fitting to match the folk song.

LOVE this fun Halloween take on a classic children's song. Illustrations are adorable and my Kindergarteners and 1st graders loved reading this the week before Halloween.

One of my favorites to read with Kindergarten and 1st grade in the month of October. Use various non-pitched percussion to experiment with the different clothing items and sounds!

Second read (2014): 4/5 stars. As I suspected, I enjoyed (well maybe not enjoyed...let's say appreciated) this book much more on my second read. I remember just hating Katniss the first time, but not I feel like I understand her so much more. She's 17 - still a child. She hasn't experienced child-like things, but emotionally she is. She has experienced unbelievable trauma and naturally responds to it the 'normal' way I would think. This book is soooo dark, which is to be expected based on the world Collins creates in the first two books. I don't really know what else to say about it other than I'm intrigued to see what they do with the movie and if they can keep the excitement from Catching Fire in the film.

First read (2010): 3/5 stars. Man, this book just wasn't it for me. It was consistently depressing. I mean, literally the. whole. book. Don't get me wrong, it was satisfying, and effectively closed off the trilogy - but too many of the good intensity was drowned out by bad intensity (i.e. Katniss becoming "mentally unstable" multiple times throughout the book, but always pulling it together miraculously?). I loved this series for many reasons, but this book is not one of them.

I loved sharing this book with my younger music students at school. It's a great way to introduce some different qualities of Chanukah and uses a song they already recognize! Also the illustrations are adorable.

Very cute. I loved some, I liked some, others were okay. If I had to pick a favorite it would probably either be Stephanie Perkins' or Kiersten White (the latter of which I haven't read anything else by so I'm gonna have to look her up! Definitely recommended for some light, easy, fun reading for this time of year. Enjoy!

I loved this book! And 8-12 year old me would have eaten it up over and over again. I want to live in this library. The characters were fairly predictable and straight forward, but if you read this book imagining that you are the age it is geared toward, I think the characters are well written. Simple, but well written. I would love to see a sequel!

I liked this so much better than the Percy Jackson series! I don't really know why, it had all of the same fun elements. I think the storyline was just generally more complex (and the book was longer) than all of the Percy Jackson's. I'm really excited to read the next one!

This book broke my heart. It made me think, and feel, and hate, and love... The story was incredibly rich. I found myself turning back to the first half of the book to find connections that were made at the end.
Verity is so strong and so smart.
Maddie is so loyal and so talented.
Their friendship deserves to be told again and again to new readers. I recommend this for ANYONE.