Leigh reviewed on 7/20/2015 + 378 more book reviews

My goodness what a finish to this trilogy. Katniss was in hiding during most of the third Hunger Games book; Deuce is anything but. This chick had been a badass from the beginning of the series and she gets *heavy* in this one, smacking down anyone and everyone. I loved it. What I loved more was that through this, she learned to have emotions and feelings. The hormonal feelings of teenage lust were ones I could do without but the humanity was handled well. Aguirre stunningly laid out the stories of us all: if we stay in the same isolated, insular areas our entire lives and never become exposed to others and others' ways of life, we'll never grow and we'll end up consumed with hatred (or religion - nice one, Aguirre!); we'll never learn to accept true change from people, never learn to trust, never learn to find out who we really are.

I cried during an unexpected turn of plot. I still feel devastated and empty and I can't believe a YA book (never known for their character development) made me do that. I haven't cried over a book for nine years.

I take off half a star because I just couldn't stand the lustful longing between Deuce and Fade - gets old and boring after a while. Continuous chit-chat about "kissing privileges." I will give Aguirre a lot of credit for not allowing this to become a typical YA book in that vein.

I take off another half a star because the author didn't make the Freaks zombies. The opportunity was thereand I even thought she was headed in that direction. Mutants are boring. But at least these evolved so they kept my interest - what would they do next?

All in all, a stunning, sweeping, mind-wrecking conclusion. Reminded me a lot of Brian Boru's story but Aguirre rocked the feminist angle.

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