I read the book before seeing the movie however, my husband did not. We both absolutely loved it. He did not understand how Thresh knew Katniss befriended Rue and did the thing with the flowers. I think in the book they went much more in depth about each character. He said hey the movie was already about 2 1/2 hours long. It could have been 4 hours long and I would have been on the edge of my seat loving it.