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The reviews I forgot to post, part 1!

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

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Somehow I ended up reading three dystopian novels in a row. Maybe not the best choice during an actual pandemic.  Wilder Girls is set in an all-girls boarding school on an isolated island off the coast of Maine.  About a year and a half before the novel starts, something… happened.  A sort of disease that was probably already present on the island suddenly made an evolutionary jump from two species (an iris and a crab) to everything else, including people.  The disease, which they call […]

A Study in Literal ‘Othering’

The Wall by John Lanchester

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The Wall follows the exploits of a young Draftee, Kavanagh, as he does his time patrolling a literal Wall encasing his entire island nation (this name of which is never explicitly revealed). The Wall separates the ‘good’ people of Kavanagh’s homeland from the ‘Others’, sea-faring refugees who are desparately seeking to conquer The Wall and resettle in safe lands. A cataclysmic event (climate change? nuclear war?) has rendered most of the world uninhabitable and plunged most countries beneath the ever-rising sea. Kavanagh does not initially […]

Hard to really make a successful prequel, and this book doesn’t change my opinion of that.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games, #0) by Suzanne Collins

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I gave in to my curiosity despite knowing this probably would not be a satisfying read, and it went about as well as I expected it to. A misfire for me. (I was going to round up to three stars, but one thing annoyed me a great deal even beyond what I expected, so rounding down to two.) I really wasn’t going to read this*, but then I read in several reviews that part of it was about how the Hunger Games itself evolved and […]

“There are worse games you could play.”

Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3) by Suzanne Collins

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I think I’m going to bullet point this one since I am now emotionally exhausted. The rest of the review will be all spoilers. *This is still not a five star book for me, though I am going to bump it up to 4.5 stars. Mainly, I’m still mad about Finnick dying, although the longer time passes, the more I see why she did it. Also, the ending does still seem a little rushed and confused, but then again, it does sort of reflect Katniss’s […]

“You would think that at this moment I would be in utter despair. Here’s what’s strange. The main thing I feel is a sense of relief. That I can give up this game. That the question of whether I can succeed in this venture has been answered, even if that answer is a resounding no. That if desperate times call for desperate measures, I am free to act as desperately as I wish.”

Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2) by Suzanne Collins

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Firstly I just want to point out something weird, which is that this is my 75th book of the year, and this book follows the 75th annual Hunger Games, and I did not plan that, it’s just a very strange coincidence. (Not sure how this ended up being my 76th CBR review though??) Secondly, I want to talk some more about Katniss and her psychological state, there will be spoilers in the rest of the review so mosey along now if you somehow haven’t read […]



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