Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

WARNING: For those who haven’t read The Hunger Games or Catching Fire, there are spoilers in this review.

THE DETAILS

Mockingjay is the third and final book in "The Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins. It was published in 2010 (last Tuesday, actually) and is 390 pages long, for those who care to keep track.

THE SUMMARY

Katniss Everdeen has survived her second run in the Hunger Games and now her world has exploded. Literally. Her home, District 12, has been destroyed. Her best friend, Gale, and her family have luckily escaped, but Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist, and a revolution has been set in motion. Now Katniss must decide whether or not to fulfill the role that she was designed to play in it: The Mockingjay. The symbol of the rebellion, with the power to decide the fate of Panem. Will she rise to the responsibility, at her own personal cost?

THE REVIEW

Mockingjay was one of the books I had been waiting for all year. I picked it up as soon as the store opened (along with a sweet keychain) and after 6 hours of reading, finished it the same day. It was that intense. So intense that I needed to take a few days to mull over what I had just read. No doubt that I’ll be reading it again very soon. However, I apologize in advance if this review feels a little more ambiguous than my other ones. I found it was difficult to talk about the book without spoiling the story for those who haven’t read it. Anywho...

I found myself incredibly satisfied with how this book unfolded and concluded. When I started reading it, I really had no idea what to expect, nor did I have any guess as to how it was going to end. Definitely the darkest of the three, Mockingjay didn’t have the same style that the other two books had. But given the nature of the plot, I don’t think there is any way that it could have fit the same pattern anyway. Not with a country-changing revolution going on. Collins does a good job showing us that in war, nobody wins. She is not nice to her characters, and didn’t believe in softening anything for her readers either. Characters die. Characters change. Nobody is the same as they were in the first book, Katniss most of all. While battling with her inner Peeta/Gale-I-can’t-live-without-either-of-them-but-can-really-only-have-one feelings (which I loved), she manages to demonstrate courage, and an honor for life that she didn’t really exhibit in the first book. No doubt this is the result of everything that has happened to her so far. I mean, having a few people die in your arms is sure to change your outlook on life, right? I wouldn’t say she becomes a white horse hero—far from it, in fact—but it’d be unrealistic to expect that that’s what she would become given the position she’s in and what’s she gone through. Everybody has their own agenda, and Katniss, the focal point of all of this, handed it as well as you could expect any teenager to: with a lot of confusion. But Katniss has always been good at trusting her instincts, and in the end that's what mattered. Though it’s clear by the end of the book that she’s damaged and will never regain the innocence of youth, the series concluded with a happy ending, one which I’m sure a number of fans will be satisfied with.

THE RATING

8/8 TENTACLES

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