Bully was being mean and not sharing.

Goofy saved the parade from catching on fire.

Gus adopts some baby turtles. I like it.

I like all of the silly jobs.

I LOOOOVE ME SOME BLOOM COUNTY

My child really enjoyed this story of how Tyrone O'saurus became a dancer.

This book absolutely surpassed my expectations! I loved the first book, but this one was thrilling and heartwarming!! I forever recommend this series to anyone, who loves adventure and a thrilling story!

Great read about a group of people each trying to reinvent themselves at an artists' colony with a dark history.

While overall an entertaining read, I think it read more like a screenplay than a novel. Reading the notes at the end of the book made this notion clearer as the inspiration was in fact a couple of Sherlock Holmes movies set in the 1940s. I think this can work out to an advantage in some cases, but in this book, it resulted in an overemphasis on the setting and atmosphere at the expense of getting to understand any of the characters in depth. Perhaps the author is hoping to piggyback on the plethora of development that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and no shortage of screenwriters have attempted to forge, but in my opinion this book falls flat on its own basis.

I have loved this series since the first book, and this novel deepens the reader's understanding of this brutal, extravagant, spectacle of a Rome in its last days society. Haymitch Abernathy is a fascinating character, part good, part bad, a true chiaroscuro of morality. In this novel, we see him younger more idealistic, before loss and alcoholism ate away at him, and yet at the kernel we see the beginnings of his pragmatic, blase outer shell. There are numerous parallels to the first Hunger Games novel and here we meet young versions of Effie Trinket and Caesar Flickerman, along with a young and tragic Maysilee Donner. The writing pulls the reader in from the first page and keeps you turning the pages right up until the tragic end that explains the mystery of why Haymitch behaves the way he does as a mentor to Peeta and Katniss. Excellent addition to The Hunger Games pantheon!