Mockingjay

SPOILERS WITHIN!!!! This book is really hard to rate. I hate it, I love it. It was wonderful in the way that I could not put it down--I NEEDED to continue reading and couldn't stop. But there were a lot of things I also didn't like about it.

For me, Mockingjay was about the loss of a hero. And I'm not talking about Panem's hero or the Capital's hero or anything like that within Mockingjay's pages. I'm talking about me. The reader's hero died in this book. Katniss's character seemed really weak and fickle. I can't even count how many times the scenes changed because someone sedated her. I'm not saying she shouldn't have been traumatized by everything thrown her way, but we're robbed of the strong, willful Katniss we've grown to love over show more the course of the first two books. She became a passive hero, one that just follows the path the book sets out for her, not carving her own.

She even seemed to become the very idea of a tribute that she had always rejected before (which is something that really endeared her to me as a heroine). In the last book, one of the most horrible parts was when she shot that woman and killed her without hesitation. This is what she did NOT want to do (she mentioned this several times in her thoughts). She didn't want to turn into the monster that the Capital wanted her to become. But she did anyway.

Many sequences in the book seemed very rushed, and even without purpose. I think the biggest flaw of this book was the lack of emotion. Katniss mourned the death of Rue more than her sister Prim. What? How can that even BE? And the very death of Prim seemed, to me, the most wrong thing Collins could do to to her trilogy. The whole commencement of Katniss's adventures began with her stepping forward to save Prim. In that way, the evils of the book one, and the heroes lost. Everything was for naught.

And Finnick. He grows on us as one of the most lovable characters, and yet he's killed off with maybe just a few sentences and Katniss moves on. So many characters were killed off without real purpose. There was no emotional aftershock or mourning. It just happened.

AND then the romance. The love triangle between Katniss and Peeta and Gale seemed to be brushed aside. I hated, absolutely HATED that Katniss chose Peeta by default. Because Gale moved away and got that "job." It's one more example of how Katniss was a passive character in this book. She let everyone else make her decisions for her, and it did not endear her to me at all. I started to dislike her, and that's HORRIBLE for a book's heroine, at least in this kind of book! The whole reasoning with the dandelion was lovely, but it wasn't enough. When did Katniss and Peeta's relationship rekindle? How did they meld back together? Why were we robbed of these sweet scenes? I hated that everything was thrown at us at the end in a couple of paragraphs. I love Peeta, and I loved the tender and uneasy and at times awkward relationship he and Katniss had, but we were completely robbed of any of this at the end. They just came together because there really wasn't anything more for them to do.

In the end, Katniss was weaker than when she began. Yes, I know, war does this to people. But as a heroine for a book with so many broken characters, I just wanted SOMEONE to rise up at the end of the book higher than when they started. I wanted a CONCLUSION of their characters. A well-rounded arc to end them. Not just a fizzled end.

So I love and hate this book. I love it because it had so much tension and Katniss got her Peeta in the end and for the Finnick characterization and for the sometimes beautiful scenes. But I hate it for its countless, horrendous flaws. show less

A fantasy series that ends in three books? Unheard of!

The final book in the Hunger Games series is a doozy. We see Katniss and her friends gearing up with rebels for the struggle against the Capitol, their brutal struggle, and its aftermath. The plot is gripping, although the first half is somewhat slow (following suit with the previous book) and given the breadth of people discussing it I won't go into detail.

However, on finishing the series I'd like to take some time to reflect on one of its most interesting aspects: its moral ambiguity. Throughout the books, we are confronted with complex events and characters - sometimes, bad things happen with good results. Other times, good causes have bad side-effects, and are not as they present show more themselves. We the reader can never rest easy with the assurance that out protagonists will do the right thing, or what the right thing is.

I thought this ambiguity was very well-done, and left me both shaking my head and turning pages to see what would happen next. If you left this series feeling unsatisfied or disturbed by the choices Katniss makes or the way characters end up dying inglorious deaths, good - life and especially war aren't heroic parodies, and there are never easy answers. show less

I consider Mockingjay to be possibly the most emotionally intense and intimate of the original three Hunger Games novels, and that characteristic serves to benefit it greatly. Katniss is most vulnerable in this novel and, to me, the most fascinating as a result. Her disorientation and confusion with the world beautifully reflects the trauma she suffers in the previous books and makes the events of those books seem even more devastating. In addition, the rebels' plot to overthrow the Capitol is extremely compelling and never failed to keep me engaged as I read. Mockingjay is a powerful and grounded conclusion to the Hunger Games series for all of these reasons and more; it is not perfect, but, like every great ending, it makes the events show more of previous books feel satisfying and worthwhile. show less

The poet Shaemas O'Sheel once wrote: "He whom a dream hath possessed knoweth no more of doubting." This dream-possessed soul, it later transpires, also knoweth no more of sorrow, and views "the ruin of worlds that fall... from eternal arches." Useful things, these dreams. I suspect that O'Sheel meant all of this heroically, although given the fact that he was a communist who was critical of Soviet foreign policy (resulting in many communist publications refusing to print his work), I may perhaps be doing him an injustice. In any case, it has always seemed to me, when pondering these lines, that the person who knows nothing of doubting must either be something of a fool, or an individual whom it would be extremely unwise to trust. It may show more come as a surprise, given how strongly I express myself at times, but I often feel that all I have is doubt. Questions. Uncertainty. Internal debate.

I kept thinking of O'Sheel's poem, as I read this third installment of Suzanne Collins' brilliant dystopian trilogy, The Hunger Games, because it suddenly seemed to me that what I was looking at was the narrative of a dream. A beautiful, alluring dream, in which present injustice and brutality - as horrifically oppressive as it is possible to get, with humanity's penchant for cruelty, and tendency toward self-destruction, put on display, and made into a kind of grotesque entertainment - might give way to a better future. A dream, as necessary as breathing, that change is possible, and that we can make it happen. That we will find a way to organize ourselves, as a society, in a way which does not cause egregious harm. That those who do wrong will be brought to justice, and those who need help will find it. That redemption can be had, love can triumph, and healing can occur. That battles can be fought and won, and stay fought and won. Don't we all - and not just in reading this book, but in our own lives and world - have that dream?

Dreams make life possible. But like all negotiations of power, they can also be very dangerous: they can change shape, turn in unexpected directions, and transform the dreamer. And in watching the way the dream of a new Panem, one in which the Capitol no longer dominates the Districts, plays out in Mockingjay; how different characters react to it, how (and how much) they believe in it, and what they're willing (or unwilling) to do to make it happen - in short, to what extent they are possessed by it - it occurred to me that, while this is undoubtedly the story of terrible injustice and oppression, and the rebellion against it, it is so much more. It is the story of those who do and don't believe, those who are willing to do anything to achieve their end, and those who have qualms. It is the story of those who are sure, and those who have doubts. Most of all, it is the story Katniss, a flawed adolescent who's seen and done too much, who's barely keeping it together, in the face of forces well beyond her control. Katniss, who is, down to her very bones, a doubter...

Katniss isn't possessed of a dream, and Collins doesn't offer any easy answers. In fact, she doesn't offer answers at all, and that, I suspect, is the real reason for all of these angry reviews I've been reading today, in which disappointed fans lambaste the author for not writing the story they wanted to read. For not having Katniss choose the mate they would have preferred, or recover fully from the unforgettable brutality she has seen. For not tying everything together neatly with a bow, and reassuring readers that, for those who have come through unimaginable suffering, and have made unimaginable sacrifices, the dream will be achieved. That many of these irate fans know that such is not how the world - this or any other - works, is irrelevant (although it's certainly interesting to see how many of them mention that Collins' ending was realistic, before going on to explain how much they hated it). The point is, they want to be possessed of that dream, to be removed from all doubt, and lifted above sorrow. Unfortunately for them, that isn't what Collins is offering. For that, I thank her from the bottom of my own doubter's heart. show less

This book ends the trilogy well, and goes deeper into the theme of manipulation and power. Even though she is the "mockingjay", and the symbol of resistance, she is never the real symbol. She is consistently manipulated, even by her childhood friend. EVerything is to be subdued in the name of the cause, and in the name of those in power.
Her final act, when she kills the new president, is a powerful indictment of those in power. Revolution never really builds a new future for the masses. It builds a new future for those who lead the revolution.

The final climatic scene where she looks into the eyes of Snow, before firing her arrow is a fitting end to the trilogy indeed.

The nation of Panem is at war. The districts burn with the fierce flame of rebellion, fueled by the very spark the Capitol feared would ignite a revolution. Katniss, the victor of The Hunger Games, the girl on fire, has found herself once again in the midst of a most dangerous game. Now the prize for wining is not just her life, but the lives of those she loves, and the fate of the citizens of Panem.

In this new game, just as in the arena, alliances must be formed in order to survive, but in a war waged not only with weapons but with carefully orchestrated propaganda, it is hard to tell what's real and who's side to be on. The old enemy, the Capitol has Peeta and President Snow destroyed District 12, but the new player, President Coin, show more who leads the rebels, may want more from the Mockingjay than just fueling the rebellion- she may want her to burn in the very fire she started.

And then it was over. This is the third and final book in The Hunger Games Trilogy. I tried to read this book as slowly as possible to savor every last word. If you are a fan of this series, you too understand the bitter-sweet feeling that comes with finishing it. While Collins has created a world in which I would never want to live, I now have some very good friends there that I will miss.

I suppose the big issue, for a lot of people, was who would Katniss choose? Peeta or Gale? And while she ended up with who I felt she would all along, she made the only choice she should have made- and chose Katniss. I loved this.

"Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without."

So she did. She chose herself. The love triangle in these books was never the story. The story was Katniss. When it was all said and done, I didn't give a flip what boy stayed in her life, he was only ever a supporting character.

The trilogy itself was epic. However, for me, the final book wasn't. I didn't like Finnick's confession. It seemed strategically placed for shock value when the story was all ready shocking enough in it's entirety. I thought it was overkill. I didn't like who Gale became. I always preferred to think of him as a good old soul, in contrast to Peeta's calculated and manipulative nature.

But I loved the twist. When Katniss let loose that final arrow it was all I could do not to scream! And I love stinky, grumpy old Haymitch. I love that we are given so many bad guys that you couldn't trust anyone. Except your hairdresser. Collins gets that a good stylist is worth fighting for.

And though I usually don't like story lines that take this direction- I loved the final "gift" Katniss gives Peeta. He deserved them.

I read an article last week in which some stuffy curmudgeon complained about the violence in Mockingjay and when are we going to examine violence in children's literature and I laughed. Stupid, the first book was about CHILDREN KILLING CHILDREN in an arena, basically for survival AND FOOD and then there is a WAR. What did you expect Mockingjay to be about? Bunnies? War is NOT kind- regardless if it's in fiction and it doesn't care if there are children involved. Collins stayed very true to human nature. She waged a war that was manipulated by scripts and make-up and put it on TV for the masses to gawk at. It's an ugly concept and she portrayed it beautifully. Well played Ms Collins. Well played. show less

2025 Listen:
The older I get, the more Team Katniss over any silly Team-Boy I become. This book is gut-wrenching and having a kid makes it even harder to fathom, to stomach Coin's decision. Just as difficult to accept Katniss' decision to agree to the new Capital-Kids-Hunger-Games, then commit murder. Trauma makes us do crazy things.

Great narration by Tatiana Maslany.

Listened to from Jan 18-Feb 2, 2013

Audio -- I had some technical difficulties with this audiobook from Overdrive. It got to the part at the very end where all of the tributes meet (except for the one that is mentioned as a rebel leader in District 2 or 8...I don't remember exactly but I thought it strange that she was missing)...anyway, I got to that part and then it skipped show more back to the beginning of Part 10 and that entire section of the download just kept switching around to different parts of the book. So I picked up my copy today and read the last few pages.

It's funny how you react to books differently depending on when you read them. When I first read this, I read it quickly and thought, that was good. This time I read the end and thought, "YES! Katniss your PTSD has jilted you, but I totally understand why you chose Peeta now." I was always Team Peeta, but it just made sense. And her reason for not wanting kids, I can relate. It's a scary world out there and I'm not sure I could handle bring a child into it...

But I also remembered this time why I am NOT Team Gale. He is heartless. He only wants revenge and it isn't about revenge. It's about wanting a better world for everyone, not just punishing those that made it bad. Peeta gets that...he always has.

It's still a fantastic series. Can't wait to see the rest of the movies.

Read in Nov 2010

I love this series. While it is not my favorite (it's definitely a tie between the first two), Mockingjay is a strong finish to an amazing trilogy. show less