2010: #87 – Mockingjay (Suzanne Collins)

Book #87 was Mockingjay, the third book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy.  The back of the book reads:

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.

*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***

I’m not even going to try to discuss this without spoilers. So consider yourself warned!

First of all, I really liked the book.  I found it to be a mostly satisfying conclusion to the series.  In some ways, I found it more engrossing than Catching Fire, which was mostly a rehash of Hunger Games. But what I really want to discuss is Katniss.

A lot of people read this book and immediately hated what Collins did with Katniss.  They felt like she changed Katniss into someone weak who just waited for things to happen to her instead of taking charge.

I have to say that I disagree! I guess I’ve always felt that Katniss was an emotionally immature character, and was often having her strings pulled by other people — she just didn’t realize it.  When the bodies started piling up, she just wasn’t emotionally mature enough to handle it. I think the only decision she made in the whole series that was truly hers was the decision to step up and take Prim’s place. Other than that, she was always someone’s pawn in the game.  An extremely effective pawn, but a pawn, nonetheless. I think that most of the time, her independence was an illusion.

That’s not to say the book was perfect. My main complaint was the pacing. I think we spent way too much time in 13 and not nearly enough time in the Capitol. The ending was horribly rushed, with Katniss’s trial and banishment just glossed over. I would have loved a better, slower exposure of 13 being just like the Capitol. Especially the part about Coin wanting another Hunger Games.  That’s taken care of in about 4 pages, and it needed to have more impact than that.

Overall, I wasn’t at all surprised by how Katniss ended up at the end.  After 3 books of people manipulating her, a mental break was not completely unexpected.

Other reviews:

#279 ~ Mockingjay (Review in Haiku) : literatehousewife.com
Booking Mama: Review: Mockingjay
Re-Post: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins; Review « Wordbird
Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins *Spoilers* : Bart’s Bookshelf
Presenting Lenore: Book Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Page count: 400 | Approximate word count: 100,000

2009: Best Intentions (Emily Listfield)
2008: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Agatha Christie)
2007: Carolina Moon (Nora Roberts)
2006: 44 Cranberry Point (Debbie Macomber)

Used in these Challenges: Four Month Challenge – Part 4; 2010 100+ Reading Challenge; 2010 Reading From My Shelves Project; 2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge; Finish That Series Challenge; Pages Read Challenge Season 2;