Review: Mockingjay *Spoiler Free*

Mockingjay

Suzanne Collins

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Release Date: August 24, 2010

Pages: 390

Ratings: 3 Stars

Summary (from Goodreads):

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans -- except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay -- no matter what the personal cost.

Like everyone else, I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mockingjay. It was my first night at college the night it was released and I downloaded Mockingjay on my Nook since no stores around me where having midnight releases. I stayed up until 5:15am in the morning reading this book and had to be up by 6:30am. Sadly, I felt that staying up that late was not worth it after reading Mockingjay

As the title says, there will be no spoilers, because I know some people still haven’t read it, but I must say, Mockingjay fell extremely short of my expectations. This book, in my opinion, didn’t feel right. Something was off. I felt that this book didn’t belong in a series with the previous two books, everything felt different. What really bothered me was that the characters that we grew to love and to know in the first two books felt extremely different in this book. Interactions between Katniss and Gale and Peeta were extremely awkward and Katniss felt like a different character completely. I understand that the actions from the previous two books impacted Katniss and definitely made the tone of this book darker, but I felt that at times, characters we knew were almost completely new characters.

I was so disappointed in this book. The plot was extremely slow and definitely didn’t have the pacing of the previous two books. I felt a lot of the plot could have been cut or condensed into shorter scenes too, which annoyed me. I felt that Katniss spent way to much time in this books knocked out, asleep, drugged up or moping around. I missed the action and the intense, heart wrenching scenes from the previous books. The emotional impact of this book was severely lacking, I didn’t even shed a tear when certain events happened. The only time I felt like crying was at the end because the book was over. I feel a lot of the deaths/events were overlooked or brushed over, making the event not as sad as it was or should have been.

And now we get to the epilogue. While I don’t wish to spoil the book for those who haven’t read it, I must say that the first thing that popped into my mind when reading the epilogue was “This reminds me of the Deadly Hallows epilogue”. I had the same emotional reaction to it as Harry Potter and if felt eerily similar which bothered me a lot.

I feel that if this novel was not the last Hunger Games novel, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. However, it was the last one in an amazing series, a series of which I am a HUGE fan. I was just sadly disappointed that this was the way Suzanne Collins decided to end such a fantastic series. While Mockingjay was not what I expected and probably my least favorite series in the book, I do respect Suzanne Collins and I understand why she did what she did and why she ended the series the way she did. I just wish that it could have been different. This book was just not up to par with the AWESOME of the previous two novels, however, it is a book I will reread again since it is the conclusion to one of my favorite series. I just wish things could have gone differently and lived up to the awesome I was expecting.