Reviews with content warning for Torture - Изгревът в деня на Жътвата

Reviews tagging 'Torture'

Изгревът в деня на Жътвата by Suzanne Collins

1134 reviews

shaykay's review against another edition

4.5

emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I kept seeing everyone talk about this one. I love Haymitch, and I needed an audiobook to listen to while I drove home, so it was like all the pieces aligned here for me, and it was so good. I will say Haymitch's story is so sad, and it's no wonder he is who we see in Katniss's story. It kind of makes me wonder where he went after her story ended because I'm struggling to remember. It's been over a decade since I read the original trilogy. It was again a nice step away from the romance world, and I can't wait to read another book in this world. I really loved learning about the other games, too, but I need Effie's book. I'm just curious about the capital, and it seems like she's capital, but also not fully into that world, and I think it would be interesting to see how she got to that point. Plus, just to see more of the capital life because everything has been through the district's eyes pretty much. Anyway, I can't wait to see the movie.

Content Warnings

jessep95's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Content Warnings

flankaykay's review against another edition

5.0

dark 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: Complicated

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

morgybritt's review against another edition

5.0

dark 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 filled in so many blanks and answered so many questions we have asked for years about the series. I hated Haymitch like Katniss did in the beginning and now he is such a lovable character. My heart hurts for him

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