Finally finished the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy last night. I am glad to have read all three books, they were definitely worth the read. Most fans of young adult literature agree.Katniss and Peeta came back for one more round in The Hunger Games when it is decided that for the Quarter Quell old victors would battle it out. Now, she is "safe" in District 13 where she begins to realize that they must fight an ever angry Capital that wants revenge. Katniss makes deals with Coin, the president of District 13 for a chance to kill her arch-nemesis, president of the Capital, Snow.
Throughout Mockingjay, we follow District 13 as they wage war with the Capital and it turns out to be a bloody, violent, and sometimes hard to stomach war. Despite many deaths of some of the main supporting characters, Katniss and Peeta come out of the war alive, but badly damaged mentally, emotionally, and physically.
I have mixed feelings about this book. I definitely think it was good to finalize the story and find out what happens in the war, and in Katniss's love life, but this book was downright confusing sometimes! I found myself wondering, "what the heck, how did that happen" many times while reading. There were so many characters with such similar sounding names, that added to the confusion as well.
For lack of a better way to describe it, I felt as though Suzanne Collins knew she had to write a third book to finish the story, but didn't really want to so she just threw something together. That may be harsh, but it definitely felt that way reading it. The plot was disjointed and simply hard to follow at times.
I did appreciate her in-depth descriptions of Peeta - his character in this novel was the most interesting because he was so damaged by the Capital and it was interesting to watch his transformation.
The ending is what gave this novel its best quality. In the last five pages and the epilogue, her writing was beautiful and it absolutely brought tears to my eyes to learn the fate of these characters that I have followed for three novels. I was touched to see that she didn't sugarcoat a happy ever after, and ended it with the realization that despite everlasting effect that The Hunger Games will have on Katniss and Peeta, they make the best of their situation and try to move on. And they do, in a big way.
I agree with you that this book felt messier than the other books in the series, but I think in some ways it's because the issue got more and more complicated as the series continued. Mockingjay was, for me, the most "adult" of the series, which might account for some of it. I read this book pretty fast though, so I want to go back to it later and try to give it a more thoughtful reading.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your insight Kim! Absolutely agree - this felt like the most "adult" of the three. We have all three in our middle school library and I often wonder what students think when they read the third book. It definitely is a book I will come back to at some time. I am just glad I waited until all three were out to read them, I imagine that I would have had a hard time with the various characters if I hadn't read them all three right after each other.
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