Alan Zendell's Blog: It's About Time - Posts Tagged "mockingjay"

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I guess it was hard to top "The Hunger Games". "Mockingjay" wraps up the trilogy in a much less spectacular fashion than it began. The resolution of Katniss's trials and travails is acceptable enough, but the journey she took in this book simply couldn't equal what came before.

In truth I kept hoping she would grow up some. She's only 17 throughout most of this book, but after all she'd been through, I'd have liked to see more clarity in her. Clarity about who she is and what she stands for. But instead there's constant confusion and she seems to wander through this book like a random walk, just being drawn along by events. And there was too much death and maiming for my taste. In the "Hunger Games" they were necessary components of the story. In "Mockingjay" they felt like overkill.

Katniss's final act of defiance, while not surprising, is at least pure Katniss. In the end, realizing fully that the people fighting the bad guys aren't necessarily good guys, re-aiming her remaining arrow and doing what she could to break the cycle of despair was a fitting conclusion to her struggles. But in the other key issue of the young girl's life, I was disappointed in the outcome. The way she wound up with Peeta while losing Gale sounded like a weary, half-hearted conclusion given the tension that their triangle had sustained throughout the trilogy. And Gale just seemed to fade out of the story. For all his conflicting qualities, I thought he deserved better. Maybe it all would have worked out that way in real life, but I expect more from heroines like Katniss.



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