Let me preface this review with my relationship with The Hunger Games trilogy: This series was never the formative young adult dystopian books for me. Even with all its faults, that title belongs The Maze Runner. I only got to watch The Hunger Games movies, which I absolutely loved, when I was in college. And I have only read the books, which I have mixed feelings about, within the last few years. 

While I didn't necessarily hate Suzanne Collins' writing style, I didn't really care for it either. I don't quite have the vocabulary to describe what the experience was like, but the best way I can is that it has a sort of choppy quality to it, like being shown flashcards in quick succession. It's easy to read but a bit fast for my liking. I felt that I never got to emotionally connect with the characters and had to rely heavily on themes that the story tackled to truly be invested. In short, the books were a lot more plot-driven than I usually like.

Now, comparing the original trilogy to this prequel is a bit difficult, with the added layer that I may be a little biased due to the fact that I had seen the film adaptation just a few days before picking this book up. I enjoyed the first two-thirds of the film and got a bit bored by the rest of it. And in a nutshell, that is also how I feel about the source material. (I also have many updated thoughts on the adaptation after finishing this book which I won't get into in detail since this is a book review website.)

I enjoyed the first two-thirds of this book a lot. Perhaps it's the recency bias speaking, but I genuinely think I love the first two-thirds of this book more than any of the books in the original trilogy—not as a whole, but individually. Sure, it doesn't quite have as nuanced a political commentary as the trilogy did nor did it need to do as much worldbuilding being a successor prequel, but from an entertainment standpoint I found myself more engaged than I ever had reading the other books. Not by a mile, to be sure, but I do think Collins' writing improved significantly here. I also thought it spoke to Collins' confidence in her fans that she inserted a number of "unserious" lines that are certain to evoke some amount of hilarity from readers despite the darkness of the setting.

But then we come to the third part which has left me head-scratching. There is an almost sudden dip in the quality of writing that whole sections of the final third are almost laughable when put side-by-side with snippets of Hunger Games fanfiction. It felt lazily written, not well thought-out, and it seemed that Collins had a great idea at the beginning but was now scrambling to tie loose ends that could weave somewhat neatly into the trilogy. Not that the Katniss-Gale-Peeta love triangle was ever quite well-realized, but I also think Collins does not write romance well. The parts where I had to read about Snow's yearning, insecurities, and affection were ridiculous if not downright annoying. Maybe I also just don't get love, but I thought the whole relationship between Coriolanus and Lucy Gray did not feel earned. From her characterization in the first two-thirds, Lucy Gray certainly could do better and deserved better.

I almost wish the entire third part was completely cut out, but then this would just be a pointless prequel, albeit a well-written and entertaining one, about another Hunger Games without providing a real villain origin story. But then again, I don't think the villain origin story was served in its entirety especially since Snow's reprogramming with finding the best justification for the Hunger Games felt like such a half-baked idea. There are, however, a few good scenes towards the end, and the book did reach a satisfying enough conclusion that I don't completely hate it.

For now, I'll leave my rating at 3.5 stars because despite my qualms with this book, my experience with it was a net positive like the film. I just don't know how highly I'd recommend it to others.