Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - Lever de soleil sur la moisson

Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

Lever de soleil sur la moisson by Suzanne Collins

1617 reviews

balsamfue's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

The prequel Hunger Games book that feels like it belongs. I'm still in awe of all the ways this book connects to the main trilogy and how well it fits with it. I flew through this book!

Haymitch is an easy character to like and get behind, and differs from Katniss in his way of observing the world. Because of this, you will inevitably be devastated by what occurs in the book and how he became the character we know in the Hunger Games book. Despite knowing it, the plot is engaging and reveals more information about the 50th Hunger Games to twist the knife later on. If I could sue an author for emotional damage, I'd come after you Suzanne!

Main flaws of this book are that the character writing is not evenly distributed well. For example, Haymitch's girlfriend has little character, yet one of the tributes he works with (Maysilee) had plenty of it to go around. You can tell some characters only exist to callback to the main cast or to explain their later actions. Additionally, I could tell there were times Collins had to give Haymitch plot armor during the Games to avoid writing herself into a corner. What you'd expect from a prequel written well after the main series.

There's so much meat to this book that I'm not getting at. You really have to have read the other books to fully enjoy this one. At any rate, reading all the theories and references online has brought me back to 2013 me. And in these times, I appreciate that.

Content Warnings

tennkait's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

jstarshine16's review against another edition

4.75

challenging dark emotional funny reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

echo_chamber's review against another edition

4.75

challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

blymanor's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Beautiful and tragic, just like the arena.

Content Warnings

guccishoestrings's review against another edition

4.25

fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I will most likely get flak from most people who have read this book who sees my review, but I will say it was still a great book and I would probably say it is the third best of the 5 books in the series (behind catching fire and ballad of songbirds and snakes). Without further ado, lets get to the review.

I'm pretty sure everybody knows the basis of this story by now as it is the 50th hunger games in which Haymitch won and the whole book is done from his POV. It starts with him waking up on the day of the reaping, which is also his birthday which I have to say is a depressing but awesome added detail for Haymitch's character. He is also dating girl by the name Lenore Dove who is a covey (foreshadowing). Adding anything else would be considered a spoiler so I will just go on to the good, bad, and even a rant sections of the review.

The Good:

I mean what else can I say, many fans have been waiting for a Haymitch prequel and we got it.
I mentioned it briefly but adding the detail that the 50th hunger games is on Haymitch's birthday, is a disturbing yet insanely cool detail to be added in.
The newcomers, most of them are loveable characters and when they combine forces you really want to root for them to beat the hell out of the careers.
Some of the careers are also great characters. However, known of them get any real big developments.
The two new tributes we know from district 12 which are Wyatt Callow and Louella Mccoy are great additions to the lore and Louella's both versions (if you know, you know) really add to who Haymitch is and what he becomes in the future.
I do not think a lot of people mention Wyatt but I will give him some attention. He comes off as cold and calculating, he was a booker boy which are kids that who organized and took bets on the tributes for the games. He is great at telling the odds of certain outcomes and is serious most of the times and does not joke around. However, huge spoiler
When the games start, Haymitch (who was known to be the one protecting Lou Lou) left the rest of the group to do his mission (more on that in the bad section) and Wyatt ends up dying protecting Lou Lou.
This goes to show you that Wyatt was a truly caring individual that on the outside looks like a selfish ass who would do anything to save himself but he truly does care for others more than himself.
Louella/Lou Lou story(s) are absolutely heartbreaking.
Haymitch's similarities to both Snow and Katniss are done extremely well.
Maysilee and Haymitch's relationship is done the best it could have. At least in my opionion.
The fate of Haymitch family, not including the fate of Lenore Dove cause that was just dumb.

The Bad:

The first two pages of the book felt, weird and did not feel up to par with Collins usual writing. Does get better after that though.
Lenore Dove, outside of her being covey and having similarities to Katniss and Lucy. She just comes off as forgettable. After the reaping she is basically a memory and then
dies in a really dumb way, by eating poisoned candy.....
The start of the games is just bad, outside of the interaction with Lou Lou a lot of the things that were built up never get realized. The story was built up as the newcomers vs. the careers with Haymitch being set to do a small plot that leads absolutely nowhere but to the death of one of the most interesting characters in the book. I will get to the side plot in the rant section of the review.
outside of the main characters (Haymitch and Maysilee) most tributes are not even given any lines, the only others are Panache, Silka, and Mariette the only ones getting any dialogue. all the other interactions are see through a highlight reel or Haymtich just arriving to see the aftermath of whatever cool scene was happening.

The Rant:
This is the moment you were all waiting, just to quickly note, this will be an enormous spoiler so do not look if you do not mind being spoiled.

As mentioned before, Haymitch is given a side mission to accomplish by Beetee to "drown the brain" of the arena. Thus breaking the arena kind of like what happened at the end of catching fire. The setup for this is not bad at all and it is interesting to see how its planned out. This becomes a big problem when the games start however. As during the whole time in the pre game rituals, the newcomer vs. careers is being built up and Ampert and Haymitch are being propped up as the leaders of the newcomers group. This leads to some cool interactions between the tributes of the none career districts. So, when the games start Haymitch dips just like Katniss in her games, thus never speaking to any of the newcomers in depth even once except for Maysilee. He does have interactions with Lou Lou (which is great but short), Wellie (again great but really short), and Ampert (which was stupid and ends up with him getting eaten pretty much off screen). This leaves so many other tributes getting the shaft and most of them dying completely out of view and thus making the whole newcomer vs. career setup POINTLESS. Not to mention that the whole plot to "drown the brain: utterly fails and leads to the death of Ampert, one of the more interesting characters in the book. I honestly wish that Suzanne cut the whole "drown the brain" plot and had some of the more known newcomer tributes come together and try to find a way to break the arena from there. Obviously, some tributes had to die right off the bat. For example, Wyatt's death was a great death for his character and he died right off the bat. Just a huge missed opportunity that would have lead to more character growth for Haymitch.

I could say more but I think that was long enough. Rant over.

By the length of my rant, it may seem like I don't like this book, but I truly did love this book. It also adds to other characters I have not mentioned like Wiress, Mags, Beetee, and others. It was just that one big plot that happened in the middle of the book that just pissed me off with all the missed potential that can never be gained now for obvious reasons. Still a fantastic book and I look forward to rereading it in the future.

Content Warnings

paigeclark0498's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

zinfandel's review against another edition

4.5

dark sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

apricitas305's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

lexithelion's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This book was amazing-I couldn't put it down. I love how seemingly effortlessly Collins can connect Haymitch's story to the rest. Everything from large plot points to tiny details puts this book high on the THG pedestal. Collins is such a talented writer, and it shows. This book was gritty, and constantly left you worrying about the characters that were so easy to fall in love with. This book also made me cry the most in the whole series, because it was so powerful in making me feel for the characters. The underlying theme of propaganda in this book is so well written and holds a fiery torch up to what our society may become if we continue down this dark path.

Content Warnings

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