Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, #3) in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Jan 11, 2012 Jeff Scott rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, science-fiction, bleak, post-apocalpytic, young-adult

In the final book of The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins throws a bucket of cold water on the action. Katniss taken out of the hands of a Capitol threat slows down the action. Much of the book is a character study, almost a reflection on what has happened so far. Katniss is a fish out of water through most of the story. Though, let’s face it, without a bow and arrow in the woods, she isn’t always confident in what she is doing. It’s an important aspect of the story, but it takes a great de In the final book of The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins throws a bucket of cold water on the action. Katniss taken out of the hands of a Capitol threat slows down the action. Much of the book is a character study, almost a reflection on what has happened so far. Katniss is a fish out of water through most of the story. Though, let’s face it, without a bow and arrow in the woods, she isn’t always confident in what she is doing. It’s an important aspect of the story, but it takes a great deal of time. The last 20% of the book is high-flying with a very bittersweet ending.

In the first book, I felt Katniss was a very cold character. She doesn’t want to get close to people as her future is doomed. Even before she volunteered at the Hunger Games to save her sister, her outlook was bleak. Furthermore, what it took to survive in the Hunger Games could be viewed as cold from the other characters. She is made to pay for that attitude as conflicts with Gale and a shocking turn of events for Peeta bring that to piercing light. These conflicts make Katniss aware of how she is perceived. Her reaction to those trying to sugar coat her attitude is spot on, “I didn’t have any friends because I was unfriendly.”

She has a lot of down time in Mockingjay. Her role as a revolutionary symbol is forced upon her and it shows. I felt the propaganda, successful or not, was quite forced and fell very flat in the story. I didn’t believe that people are so glued to their televisions and that it would play a critical role in sentiment during the uprising. It grows tiresome until Katniss finally takes an assignment that gives her a great deal of motivation. That assignment doesn’t come until the very end making the book very long in my opinion.

There is one scene in the book that brings the entire trilogy full circle. It’s difficult to convey without spoiling it. It’s devastating to realize that the one thing you went through hell to save is the one thing that is ultimately taken away. No cold feelings can save you from that, but an arrow might help. This ending saves the book for me. I enjoyed the commentary on the hell of war. There are never any winners and all that you can hope for is your own sense of peace. ...more

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Dec 10, 2012 Melissa Wiebe rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, fiction, fantasy, dystopia, 2012, ebook

Originally reviewed at Jayne's Books.

I personally didn't like this as much as the other two books in the series and I personally thought that it was not as strong as the first two. I think part of the reason was that the first two books had the games as the central thing that happened and I felt that Collins wrote the book just to wrap up the series too quickly and that she didn't really give what the readers got in the first two books. I also felt that Gabe was sort of shunted to the side and n ...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Judy rated it really liked it

As with The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, this was a compulsively good read, and I greatly enjoyed it. The writing, as such, is passable, but the plot is so engrossing that I was reading too fast to pay attention to the words.

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