Book Review: The Girl Who Was On Fire

- April 16, 2012

Title: The Girl Who Was On Fire

Author: Various

Publisher: Smart Pop (BenBella Books Inc.)

Rating: NF

Synopsis: Katniss Everdeen's adventures may have come to an end, but her story continues to blaze in the hearts of millions worldwide. In The Girl Who Was On Fire, thirteen YA authors take you back to Panem with moving, dark, and funny pieces on Katniss, the Games, Gale and Peeta, reality TV, survival, and more. From the trilogy's darker themes of violence and social control to fashion and weaponry, the collection's exploration of the Hunger Games reveals exactly how rich, and how perilous, protagonist Katniss' world really is.

• How does the way the Games affect the brain explain Haymitch's drinking, Annie's distraction, and Wiress' speech problems?

• What does the rebellion have in common with the War on Terror?

• Why isn't the answer to "Peeta or Gale?" as interesting as the question itself?

• What should Panem have learned from the fates of other hedonistic societies throughout history and what can we?

The Girl Who Was On Fire covers all three books in the Hunger Games trilogy.

Review: Wow. That's all I can really say. And it's not, sadly, even a positive wow. I, like most people, have read The Hunger Games trilogy and was beyond amazed by Suzanne Collins' writing. So, when I got a copy of The Girl Who Was On Fire, I had high expectations.

Huge letdown.

I think that it was great to get other author's opinions but this book would've been, in my opinion, way better if it was written by Suzanne Collins herself. I mean, what did she think when she was writing all of this? Who did she think Katniss should go with, Peeta or Gale? Would she do any of the things Katniss did in the trilogy? This book would've been amazing if she had her opinion in it somewhere...

I liked how it explained the trilogy in more detail. In all three books, everything goes by pretty fast. It's just one of those series that you can't put down even though it's past your bedtime and you have a HUGE Algebra test in the morning that you have to be awake for. This book helped explain some of the deeper things Suzanne Collins popped in there, about the Capitol, Team Peeta, Team Gale and, of course, The Hunger Games itself.

If you like reading things that sound almost like a speech, this is a book for you. Even if you have a question about something that happened in one of the three books, (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay), this book could give you the answer. All it made me do was join Team Katniss...