Finished Mockingjay

If you don't want to know details about the book, don't read further!


I'm not kidding.



Here's your last chance...



Cinna is President Snow!!!!


Okay, just kidding, but really MJ was all over the place. Right, now I'm feeling quite disappointed in things. Maybe it was that I was so excited about this book and nothing could really hold up to that, but I am feeling very unfulfilled and rather sad. This is going to be rambling since I haven't had a chance to discuss the book with anyone yet.

This book felt very different from all the others and forced at times. Obviously, we knew there wouldn't be a Hunger Games after the rebellion but the repeated attempts to make the rebellion/war into the 76th Hunger seemed weak.

I enjoyed the action in the book and thought most of it was well written. Some parts were more violent than in the other books but none touched me the way prior deaths have. Too me there is a real difference between the death of a child in the Hunger Games and the death of a rebel or Peacekeeper. Choice has a lot to do with it.

Overall, the book had a much darker feel to it. This morning I even remarked that I didn't feel like there was any good way out of it. No matter if the Capital or the Rebels won things were going to be bad. The ending seemed to confirm this. In fact, this was somewhat of a highlight to me. Collins has talked about how her books are about the brutalities of war and she did a great job of showing it. Gale designing bombs, Katniss shooting the woman in her house, Coin's many misdeeds...the ends justifying the means in too many cases. War makes people do ugly things and when it is over, are things better?

Unfortunately, just when I thought Collins was going to really hit this, she took the easy way out by laying all the blame on Coin. While she definitely was not Innocent, I don't think Coin was evil like President Snow. In fact, I believe Collins realized this too and that is why she slipped in the ridiculous discussion of a future Hunger Games to the Victors. She had to find a way to make the reader hate Coin. All the subtlety was gone at this point. Perhaps Collins felt she needed to do this because it was a YA book, but I think she could have had much more interesting interpretations if Coin was blatantly a villain.

I felt as if Collins was off with her characters throughout the book. I've mentioned Coin and I felt only a few of the new District 13 characters were fleshed out enough (particularly Boggs and Plutarch). Having Peeta missing from a large portion at the beginning was awkward and I'm sure annoyed the Team Peeta crew. Being Team Gale myself, I was happy to see him finally have a starring role to play. I enjoyed learning more about him and seeing him do more than just be the silent hunting partner.

Yet, I also felt Collins failed both Peeta and Gale, particularly in the end. Peeta needed more time to come back to Katniss. I could have accepted the ending better if there had been more time for him to recover his self before going to be with Katniss. Having someone mess with not just your brain but your memories should have taken much longer than a few months to overcome.

Gale got screwed. If you've read my predictions, you'll know I didn't think Katniss would survive. Partly, I thought this would be because I didn't believe she would ever pick either G or P and Collins would be able to leave both of the boys broken-hearted. Collins chickened out by having her end up with Peeta. This was not a series that should have had a happy ending. Katniss was a damaged soul. One of the few things she firmly believed throughout the books was that she wouldn't get married and have children. But the Hunger Games are over, you might argue. This goes back to Peeta's psychological trauma. I just don't see Katniss being able to get over what she had been through during the games, the rebellion, and the final chapters of the book. After losing so much, I don't see her being strong enough to create her own family and certainly not in the ruins of District 12.

I really did not like the last bit of the book. After Prim's death, I could understand Katniss never being able to forgive Gale. Even if he had no responsibility in the bombing (and he definitely had no DIRECT respon.), looking at him would always remind her of Prim and Rue and everything else she had lost.

But Peeta also got screwed. I have always felt as if Katniss was using him. Rarely did she do it consciously but it occurred over and over. One of the few times she knew it was occurring was in the train when she would let him sleep over so she wouldn't have nightmares. But she always went to him when she needed comfort. I don't feel like she ever gave him comfort or really even thought of him beyond a friend. It was well-established how Peeta loved her but I always felt as if it were rather one sided.

I'm going to stop typing now but I may be back with more observations. When you finish reading MJ, feel free to call me to discuss.