Let's eat Grandpa!

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Read: for obvious reasons (Scholastic Press, 400 pages, originally published August 2010)

Rating: 9 out of 10 (finished 9/2/10)

Synopsis: Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins’s groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

*  *  *  This review contains spoilers  *  *  *

Overall Impression: Like a lot of other bloggers, I’m having a hard time writing a “normal” review of this book. I finished it up over a week ago (schedule conflicts meant that it took me way too long to read it), and I still feel like I’m digesting it. A lot has already been said about Mockingjay and the series (the reaction to the third book has been all over the board), and I’ve had very interesting discussions about it with several people, which means my impressions are now both mine and others’.

• I tried very hard (and largely suceeded) to go into it without expectations. In her review, blogger Melinda Lo put it better than I ever could have: “I think it’s perfectly legitimate for readers to have reactions that include ‘I wish this had happened’ or ‘I wish this had not happened.’ But keep in mind that as soon as you start talking about hypotheticals and wish fulfillment, you leave the actual book behind.”
• Was it perfect? Of course not. I feel similarly to the way I felt about the Lost season finale — not at all perfect, but fitting. Satisfying, in a somehow empty and draining sort of way.
• This was a book about the horrors of war and the effect it has on people, especially children. Everything else was just details.
• Prim’s death was essential. I know that a lot of bloggers took issue with her death, but Katniss set out in the Hunger Games to protect her sister at all costs — but she couldn’t. I believe Collins was commenting about control. No matter how hard we try and no matter how much we love, war is undiscerning and kills without mercy and once things have spun out of control, we can’t do anything to stop them.
• I wept several times, in the places you might expect. But I cried the hardest when they were playing “Real or Not Real” with Peeta. There was something about not knowing whether or not the horrible things that had happened to you were real or not real — and to find out that yes, some of the worst of the worst actually happened.
• Finnick (and essentially Annie) deserved more. We deserved more. I know the point was the indiscriminate killing, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t spend time (after we’ve stopped running) grieving when we lose people we’ve come to love.
• I loved how the Capitol became the new arena toward the end of the book — Katniss couldn’t escape the Games until the Capitol was destroyed.
• It was incredibly violent, but when I started to think about it, Katniss is only a year younger than the men and women we send off to fight our wars. The horrors she saw are, in essence, the same things our young soldiers see. These are things that children living in war-torn countries see on a daily basis. But because these kids are “over there” and it’s not happening in front of our eyes, it doesn’t seem to exist for us. Maybe we should start to look a little harder.
• I don’t think that Katniss would have truly ended up apart from her mother, nor do I think her mother would have been okay with being away from Katniss. I do, however, understand Gale being somewhere else. He loved her (in his own vengeful sort of way) but she chose differently. Not to mention that it could very well have been one of his bombs that killed Prim. For him to remain near her would have been too difficult for both of them.
• Many bloggers didn’t like (hated, despised, abhored, loathed, etc.) the epilogue. I thought it was too neat, but it did offer quite a bit of hope. Katniss would never have brought children into a Hunger Games-era world.
• The pacing of the book was great for the first 2/3 and thenitspedupreallyfastandendedwaytoquickly.
• I also took issue when the writing felt overwraught in some places and a little chaotic in others. The first, I think, was unintentional — Collins was trying to create more conflict and drama, but sometimes it felt heavy-handed. The chaos, on the other hand, was probably a choice Collins made. Katniss spent a lot of the book in a state of confusion — and we were taken along for the ride. Still, I had to re-read some parts to fully understand what was happening. 
• Despite all of its faults, I devoured it and loved it and it tore me up inside. We’re having a book club retreat in October where we will discuss all three books — I’m planning on re-reading them before that. I wonder what will stand out in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire now that I’ve read Mockingjay.

Other books I’ve read by Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games and Catching Fire

Other blogger opinions: Stephanie, Book Lady’s Blog, Mrs. Q, My Friend Amy, and Book Journey