Book Review - Mockingjay

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(re-read 2011, originally read 2010)

I was trying to figure out when I started re-reading this trilogy why I gave the last book four stars. I had forgotten, while re-reading the first two, my small problems with the third.

First of all, the plotlines are much longer and more convoluted than the previous two books, which had very specific and clear story arcs. It is often one of the things that draws me to YA fiction; while subplots are there, and often beautifully placed, the main story has a clear, strong, and traditional arc. I liked that in the first two books, but it gets a little cloudier in the last.

This book is longer than the first two, which is fine, but some of the writing almost becomes excessive in places. It's not that I don't love long fiction - I'm a lifetime Stephen King fan after all - but here I find Collins drifts into familiar King territory, with some scenes that seem gratuitous, some violence that seems excessively graphic, and some incidents that seem there only to make you gasp or cringe.

With all that said, this is still an excellent book with a wonderful wrap-up to the story of Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, who now must battle her most significant fight; after two arenas, she is now thrown into a full-out war between the Capitol and the rebels and the districts which had been forced for 75 years to send their children to near-certain death in the Hunger Games take up arms and risk their lives for a better future, free of a greedy and self-centered ruling class that seem to tromp on the working man.

Gee, that doesn't sound timely for our world at all, does it?

There are definitely some parallels to the issues at play in our world today in this trilogy, taken to an extreme beyond what I would expect people to tolerate... but then again, forty years ago no one would have expected that they would tolerate full body scans at airports or needing a passport to travel between the US and Canada. The wrap-up in Mockingjay does tie up some story lines neatly, though many in ways that no fan of the series would have prefered, while others are left to the imagination. But what peace Katniss is able to find for herself is clearly spelled out, in a hopeful closing that manages to warm the heart without being cloying or overstepping where the character should have been taken.

Over all, the whole series is a very enjoyable, action-packed and entertaining read, and Mockingjay is no exception.

View all my reviews