marslotus's reviews
21 reviews

adventurous dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

So it's taken me a good few days to think about what to say about this book, because I did like it I won't lie, but I've said before I feel that this is the weakest entry of the Hunger Games Trilogy and I just wanna talk about what issue bothers me the most (also apologies if this all sounds really negative, I'm better at wording my negative thoughts than my positive ones haha).

A lot of my problems with this book were often very small things that stacked on top of one another until it felt like a substantial pile of issues, but there was one problem I felt really stood out. A part of me feels like the knowledge of

Primrose's death

before it happened may have attributed to my feelings, but I was very disappointed in her lack of character. I knew

Coin and Prim would be dying by the end of Mockingjay, but when I was about 90% through the book I thought, "Would both deaths really be happening along with large, emotional ripple effects in the last few pages of this book? There's not pages for that and an ending, maybe they only happen in the movies?".

And yet it all happened and a part of me feels like I can't judge the pacing of it cause I was literally waiting for it to happen, but the last quarter of the book felt like it forced way too many things in such a short about of time. The realization I came to however, especially with Prim, was that I felt no emotions about either

death whatsoever.

It further made me realize how flat Prim was in comparison with the entire cast, she is a person with no faults and nothing negative to say to Katniss and I firmly believe that if Katniss was a male character we would be chastising the author for making a female character with so little dimension but are told she means the world to the protagonist.

When Prim died, I think a friend of mine put it best where it felt like it wasn't Primrose Everdeen who died, but Katniss's sister.

I understand she is quite literally meant to be the symbol of innocence in this series, but if I'm meant to feel something for her, I really need more than her existing just so we feel sad about Rue, or

so we feel sad for Katniss when she dies

because I feel like those are the only two things her character really accomplished. I'm especially saddened by this because Prim is Katniss's root throughout the entire series, (or at least was supposed to be, sometimes it felt like Katniss literally forgot about her sometimes when she would think about her life without Peeta) she is the main reason Katniss does the things she does.

Something I feel would greatly improve this issue is to just give Prim the slightest bit of conflict with Katniss, an easy way of doing this would be for Prim in Catching Fire to be mad at Katniss for volunteering for the games in her place. Even though Katniss came back alive, maybe there could be some sense of "How could you make me think you would die, I watched you every day hoping you'd make it," and she could feel conflicted about voicing that opinion cause she didn't even go through the games, so what right would she have to complain. All of this could be hanging over Katniss's head until the Quarter Quell is announced and maybe Prim realizes being mad about this isn't worth it, but it's too late and Katniss is gone. I don't know, I wanted Prim to be more that just some pure, healing angel or

a lamb sent for the slaughter.

She felt so nothing to me that I feel as though sometimes she could have only existed in Katniss's mind and not much would have changed.

Also I didn't like how Peeta was kind of just...

thrown into Katniss's ending. I never really felt like they really reconnected again and him being in District 12 felt a bit weird.

It makes me feel like for the past two books we were given something we were meant to look forward to as an audience, a meaningful relationship between Katniss and Peeta (not even necessarily a romantic one!), but everything in the end of the book was so rushed. I really wish a lot of the ending moments happened just a bit earlier in the book so we had time to think about it all. But I dunno, maybe this just wasn't my thing. I'm not the biggest fan of war stories and when like 10 characters were introduced to very obviously die so we'd feel bad about the horrors of war, I'm so upset to say I felt nothing. I know there was probably no where else for the series to go, but I kinda wish it wasn't a war book.

Content Warnings

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

There's not much to say but that I really REALLY enjoyed this book. One unique thing I found is that most of this story is Katniss dealing with this newfound paranoia she's gained as a result of her trauma from the last book (as well as

Snow's first visit in the second chapter

) and I think most stories, especially when it's a woman dealing with this, the character suffering from paranoia would spend their time learning why it's wrong and to open themself up to good opportunities. Which is why I really love how validated the narrative portrays Katniss, she has every right to be paranoid because most of the things she imagines happening to her are carried out by Snow in some of the worst (best narratively) ways possible. She's never punished longterm for her thinking because it's not a flaw, it's necessary for her situation.
And I appreciate Peeta, he's not a perfect guy he ignored Katniss as much as she ignored him but I think he understands better than Gale how bad her trauma is (since he shares a lot of it) and how he's fully aware she has no intent to lead him on, it's just a horrible situation. they're both in that doesn't leave much room for romance. They're both still teenagers and I get so heartbroken how hard Katniss has been pushed by the end of the book where she doesn't think twice about

murdering Peeta, Beetee, and herself just to be spared of a torture she has, BY THE WAY, never seen and only imagined.

Literally the only complaint I have is like, one sentence in chapter 2 that I feel like could be worded better. Everything else is so great.

Content Warnings

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

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adventurous emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

Penpal by Dathan Auerbach

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

Dathan Auerbach has such a masterful handle on suspense and mystery, I was on the edge of my seat for the entirety of this read. I remember first listening to this years ago, back when it was a creepypasta YouTubers made into online audioreads and I'm so happy to return to it as an adult knowing it's just as creepy and engaging as I found it was when I was a kid. Even in moments where you can guess ahead of the narration what the horrifying reveal of each chapter will be, it still feels so earned and equally as terrifying. My only complaint is that it's not longer!

Content Warnings

Playground by Aron Beauregard

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.75

I cannot express how disappinted i was with this book, so here's me making an attempt.

To start off, if I had a quarter for every time I rolled my eyes while reading, I could probably pay for my groceries. I believe the book was trying to do something clever, or just for the sake of writing explicit scenes, by not adhering to traditional story structure when introducing the antagonists and their motivations. We are seemingly meant to view the character Rock Stanley as the main character (I only assume so because the book starts and ends with his perspective) despite the fact he is an obstacle for the cast we are supposed to root for, therefore making him an antagonist (“his” side are the ones issuing most of the narrative challenges, not the children/parents who are facing them). We're shown through his detailed narration the horrible situation he has been raised in and how he longs to be free of it, as well as well as his abuser's motivation and history for why she's doing these things to him and to the protagonists. Showing these thoughts from the very beginning as opposed to discovering them alongside the protagonists leads to the issue of padding, something the book's middle suffers greatly from. The antagonists are already on the precipice of change (or stagnation in Geraldine's case) and are simply waiting for that last push towards either the dark or light, something that only comes at the end of the book. This creates scenes that are an absolute chore to return to over and over with the antagonists restating the same things they're feeling with different words. I feel like this could be easily rectified by focusing more on the protagonists experiences with the antagonists and find out their backstories either ⅓ or halfway through the story. This way, there's more things for the parents to do in the middle than cry or scream at each other and Rock thinking some form of “Maybe I'm on the wrong side” again and again.

The fact that Molly is able to piece together that Rock is a victim is so ridiculous to me because even though we the audience knows hes been horribly abused, she uses such little evidence to come to the same conclusion. If I was in her situation, I'd be pissed at him for only deciding to defy Geraldine after all of my children have been killed. I would not know his internal struggle and the fact that from the parent's perspective he changed his mind out of no where should infuriate them!

Additionally, this book has a serious problem with telling instead of showing. From the moment the author decided to describe a 7-year-old girl as sadistic, I was so curious how that description would have been built upon,

especially thinking about how she could be an unexpected competitor against Tanya in Geraldine's twisted perspective. Tanya may have been smart, but perhaps Sadie would be the only one with the headspace to be Geraldine's protégé is the thought I had the entire book.

But it seems that such a strong word would mean nothing and would never be touched upon again. It annoyed me because not one time do we see Sadie act out of line or abnormally from a standard little girl, we're simply told she's sadistic because the author didn't feel it necessary to create real examples. There's so many more examples of this borderlining on comedic in such an unpurposeful way. The fact that the author couldn't show us how evil Dr. Fuchs is by his deeds alone,

but instead has to throw in the fact that he's a literal nazi and compares the suffering of the children to the suffering he saw in concentration camps is so cartoonish,

I literally could not believe what I was reading.

This book very rarely struck fear or horror in me which I find so upsetting because I love being horrified. I will give the author the fact that he's talented in describing the gore and injury these characters go through as well as establishing traits that make me care and hate certain characters (though the “telling not showing” issue occasionally arises in the latter aspect). I just wish it was all structured a bit differently, that horror was the utmost goal of the narrative and not a simple gross-out attempt.

Content Warnings

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 7%.

I am so sad I didn't finish this. I PROMISE I WILL COME BACK TO IT...... <3

I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

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emotional informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Wanted to finish the final quarter of this book after not finishing it months ago as recommended by Quinton Reviews, and I'm very glad I did. I'm not usually one for reading autobiographies, but Jennette has a such way with words that it's so compelling to read her story.

Content Warnings

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

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adventurous dark emotional 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? No

4.75

I love the author's ability to make you so easily love and hate the characters you need to love and hate. I also think in the hands of a lesser writer, a lot of parts of this book could have been so frustrating to read, but something like the fact that I had no clue what Peeta was thinking the entire games

only to be revealed at the end

is a storyline that commonly makes me roll my eyes, but I found myself so enraptured in the mystery of it all. And when Katniss is grappling with new romantic emotions, it feels so real how there's no good answer for her (at least for now?).
I will say some parts of this book were, grammatically, weirdly phrased to me? But that's just a nitpick. I also forgot that this was one of the first popularized YA dystopia novels, so I was laughing at the novel in the beginning as it rapid-fire made up new words this society uses which I know is a silly dystopia novel trope. Luckily, beyond the first few chapters, this aspect didn't bother me to greatly.

Content Warnings

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Hey why'd Piggy say that

Content Warnings

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 18%.

Got disinterested sorryyy (UNFORTUNATELY, it seemed like a really good book that I may come back to someday)

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marslotus's reviews 21 reviews

marslotus's reviews
21 reviews