Michelle Jones

“Katniss isn't the kind of hero we're used to seeing in fiction. She reacts more than she acts, she doesn't want to be a leader, and by the end of Mockingjay, she hasn't come into her own or risen like a phoenix from the ashes for some triumphant moment that gives us a sense of satisfaction with how far our protagonist has come.

She's not a Buffy. She's not a Bella. She limps across the finish line when we're used to seeing heroes racing; she eases into a quiet, steady love instead of falling fast and hard.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy

“There's an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I've been thinking about a lot while writing this essay. In it, Buffy sacrifices her own life to save her sister, and right before she does, she tells her sister that the hardest thing to do in the world is to live - ironic words coming from someone about to kill herself for the greater good. As I'm writing this, I just keep thinking that Katniss never gets to sacrifice herself. She doesn't get the heroic death. She survives - and that leaves her doing the hardest thing in the world: living in it once so many of the ones she loves are gone.”
― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy