Review: Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3)
Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games)
Third of The Hunger Games trilogy
by Suzanne Collins
published by Scholastic
original publication: 2010
size: 559KB (400 pages)
categories: young adult, science fiction
lending: enabled
simultaneous device licenses: 6
part of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library: yes
text-to-speech: yes
“Everything screams in my dreams tonight.”
–Katniss Everdeen
Mockinjay
by Suzanne Collins
War can make good people bad…and bad people worse.
There are no winners amongst warriors, there are only those who survive.
I was very impressed that (as was the intention from the beginning), the three books in The Hunger Games show a not unreasonable evolution of a child soldier…before, during, and after.
I would say there is nothing “young” about this supposed “young adult’ novel, and that’s important. I’m not surprised that some fans of the first book didn’t like the third.
It’s not like an episodic TV show, where you know things will largely turn out okay.
I think that’s brave.
People in terrible circumstances don’t always come out the other end the way they were before, and that’s a tough reality to take.
“I hate them. But, of course, I hate almost everybody now. Myself more than anyone.”
–Katniss Everdeen
Mockinjay
by Suzanne Collins
Obviously, that’s not going to be for everyone…and it may be disillusioning, which feels to me like the intent of the books.
Overall, I thought the writing was good. We got new characters, and more depth on old characters. The plot made sense to me, and the…sensibility of the series worked for me.
I would definitely read the books in order, by the way. These are not stand alone novels:
- The Hunger Games
- Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games)
- Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games)
If you are buying them, you can also get an omnibus edition (with all three books), but it isn’t available through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL).
SPOILER ALERT
As to content warnings: this is a harsh novel. There is more explicit violence than in the first two books…and it will likely have more of an emotional impact. Sex is definitely mentioned…including exploitation and incest.
END SPOILER
Well, now that I’ve read all three, I’m ready for the movie on March 23rd. 
While you can’t now spoil the books for me, because I’ve read them, please be careful about not spoiling them for others in comments you may want to make. I’d love to sit around and talk with you about it for an hour…but we’d have to do it where people couldn’t overhear us.
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
January 31, 2012 at 4:41 am |
I disliked the third book because I felt there were a.lot of.parts that were completely out of.character for various characters. I just didn’t feel that it was a particularly good.ending for the trilogy, or that it was anywhere near as good as the other books in the series.
January 31, 2012 at 12:40 pm |
Thanks for writing, tuxgirl!
I do understand that perspective, but I didn’t think the changes to characters’ personalities were unreasonable, considering what they had experienced. I didn’t feel like what people did that was different was because of a lack of vision of the character on the part of the author. Maybe we can go discuss it on the forum on the product page of the book. I have to think about whether minor characters had unjustified changes.
At this point, I think the second is my least favorite.
I think some people may excoriate me on this comparison, but I’d say it was tonally more similar to Elric than, say, to Star Wars.
January 31, 2012 at 10:02 pm |
I think the thing that bothered me most about Mockingjay was the evolution of Katniss from a young, moderately innocent girl surviving in the wild alone with a bow and arrow to Katniss the super heroine. Some of the “traps” she faces in Mockingjay are downright silly – and her ability to defeat everything in her path became unrealistic and tiresome by the end. It almost felt like Mockingjay was written with an eye on a movie script, and that never seems to end well for the reader.
January 31, 2012 at 10:09 pm |
Thanks for writing, Dave!
SPOILER ALERT
I’ll give you that…the development of Beetee into Q from James Bond was something that seemed hyperaccelerated to me. On the other hand, it’s not unrelatable to modern soldiers who might be given super-advanced tech. I think that was part of the point…that having that overbalancing power didn’t mean that war or its aftermath was any easier…
END SPOILER
Just my thoughts on it, though…
February 1, 2012 at 4:11 pm |
On the contrary. I don’t think Katniss was ever portrayed as the super heroine. The point is that she never ever wanted to be the hero. She’s was an unfortunate byproduct of the war; someone who had greatness thrust upon her (rather than the other way around.)
February 1, 2012 at 4:49 pm
Thanks for writing, Sara!
Dave may comment again, of course.
What i’d say is that the Mockingjay is certainly a superhero, in the comic book sense. If we separate the Mockingjay from Katniss and her motivations, she fits right in with Green Arrow or Batman, right down to a costume and super tech that defeats what would otherwise be overwhelming odds.
That was arguably the intent of the rebels…
March 25, 2012 at 1:07 am |
μεταφορές Ελλάδα…
[...]Review: Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) « I Love My Kindle[...]…
March 25, 2012 at 7:43 am |
How to make fondant…
[...]Review: Mockingjay (The Hunger Games #3) « I Love My Kindle[...]…
April 28, 2012 at 3:49 am |
[...] a big ad on a public transit vehicle for the Kindle…and it showed the opening paragraphs of Mockingjay, the third book in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games [...]