Mockingjay Paperback – February 25, 2014

This is the third, and final, book in The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. If you read the first two books, you will read this one. All I can say is to be prepared for one heck of a ride. A lot happens in this book and Collins doesn't hold off on killing off a lot of people.The book starts where Catching Fire left off. Katniss is in District 13 with Gale, her mom, and her sister Prim. The Rebel group based in District 13 is trying to get Katniss to take up the Mockingjay symbol and become the face of their revolution. Katniss is unsure if she wants to go this route or not. Peeta is still missing and presumed captured by President Snow and being held in the Capital. Katniss's journey eventually leads to the capital itself and a final face-off with President Snow.This is a hard book to review without spoilers but I will give it my best shot. The pace of this book is relentless. Collins does not pull punches when it comes to killing off large groups of people, as well as people we love and care about. This is a dark book, and that is putting it mildly.As far as characterization goes we begin to see even more of what defines Katniss as a character; she is not sentimental, she is a survivor foremost and that it what sets her apart from others. A lot of the decisions made by Katniss in this book are driven by that personality trait. In fact at one point Gale and Peeta are discussing Katniss and who she will "choose". Gale sums it up perfectly when he says something to the effect of "Katniss will choose whoever she can't survive without."On to other characters. The ruthlessness we saw in Gale at the end of the Catching Fire is built upon in this book. Gale is ruthless and practical to the point of dislike at times. He begins to look like a character that likes what Katniss stands for, rather than who she is. At the end of book two I was Team Gale all the way. I thought that Gale and Katniss had more in common in survival instincts and could pull off a good relationship based on those characteristics. As this book starts and continues, we see a side of Gale that is more ruthless and dispassionate than ever before.In order to avoid spoilers I won't say much about Peeta, except that he is back in the story for the second half of the book.Collins does an excellent job at showing both sides of the story. You get to see both the good the rebel forces do, and the harm they cause in rebelling against the Capital. As Katniss and team enter the capital, Collins relates the Capital takeover as yet another type of dome just like previous "Hunger Games" this is an interesting idea and ties the three novels together well. In each of them we see our teams of characters struggling to stay alive, doing things no one should have to do. In each book there are brutal deaths.There's quite the twist at the end of this book. People may be surprised at who Katniss kills. All I have to say about this is that I was satisfied with the choice Katniss made, and had actually been hoping that Collins would have it play out that way. Katniss's actions at the end seemed like the best way to follow Katniss's beliefs, while trying to ensure the best ending for humanity as a whole.The epilogue was interesting. It was kind of nice to get a definitive ending to everything that played out before. It wrapped things up nicely. Still, I didn't think the epilogue was necessary and I think the book would have actually been a bit better and more thought-provoking without it. As with the previous books the writing style of this book was incredibly readable and engaging; no matter people think of the plot, you have to admit Collins is one heck of a great writer.Overall I thought this was an excellent conclusion to the series. Readers may not like how some of things play-out; but I thought they played out realistically and I liked the decisions Katniss made at the end...I thought her decisions really stayed true to the core personality trait of her character, which was to survive. I am eagerly awaiting whatever Collins comes up with next.

Alert: spoilers abound.The overall pattern of the Hunger Games series is a familiar one to the genre: an ordinary individual (albeit one with some unordinary talents) is thrown into extraordinary circumstances, faces and overcomes an immediate threat to personal survival that turns into a much broader conflict in which this person plays a central part. Some of my favorite books or series follow this motif: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Dune, Ender's Game, Star Wars, the Hyperion series, His Dark Materials ... the list goes on and on. It is much easier to begin such a series than it is to end one. The beginning is easy, because the scope is smaller: a compelling mystery or situation, an enigmatic or charismatic hero or heroine, a seemingly insurmountable menace ... it all makes for good drama, pregnant with potential promise, with the details to be filled in later. A successful ending is much harder, and even amongst the works I listed earlier, some were able to achieve a successful ending better than others. This is because by the end of such works, the scope has enlarged, the world is bigger: for an author, it is easy for plot lines to spiral out of control (the post-Ender's Game trilogy and the finale of His Dark Materials come to mind) or for the ending to seem too implausibly 'pat', too "happily ever after" to do justice to the difficult journey trekked by the characters we grew close to. And yet, it is safer for an author to hew to the latter course, as there is something innately human about the desire to root for the "one man against the universe" who triumphs over all odds, beats the bad guy, and gets the girl (or boy) and the gold too, as improbable as it might be. That's why we love action movies, even though most deserve the caveat "as long as you don't think about it too much ..."This is why I loved Mockingjay, and found Suzanne Collins' ending to this series to be a remarkably brave choice. The "easy way out" was starkly apparent: Katniss could have saved Peeta (in a unique twist on the 'damsel in distress' motif--I must say, I found the choice of a female protagonist to be remarkably smart on Collins' part and refreshing for the genre), killed the bad guy, and they all could have lived happily ever after (with the man of her choosing). On some level, that might have still been a satisfying ending. But Collins' aim is to raise questions, strip assumptions bare, and leave the reader burned and bothered about the fundamental nature of reality, and of war most specifically. Actions have lasting repercussions, wounds and fear do not simply fade away during the chapter break. For me, the fact that Katniss attempts to run away from her demons makes her extraordinarily real. She has been beaten, stabbed, shot, blown up, poisoned, and tortured; she has killed and watched her closest friends and family be tortured and killed, while bearing responsibility at least in part for these actions; she has endured the genocide of her people. If this did not break her, how could she still be considered human? I would ask the critics who wished for a more stoic Katniss what they would have done in her shoes. Particularly given that the weight of Katniss' burden becomes increasingly weighty as Mockingjay continues and it becomes more and more clear that the liberators are fundamentally little different from the oppressors; a new regime under Coin would be no better--and perhaps worse in some ways--than one under Snow. One might be able to tolerate the pain and death if one believed it would lead to a brighter future, but this does not seem to be true had District 13 become the new masters of Panem. The "mission to kill Snow", which would have ended in the predictable 'triumphant victory of good over evil' in the hands of a less-skilled author quickly became a brilliantly perverse mockery of this trite motif, as it quickly becomes clear that Coin has sent Katniss to die along with some other people Coin viewed as a threat (all while keeping the cameras rolling for usable shots of 'the martyrdom of the Mockingjay'). The manner of Prim's death is also particularly heartbreaking, as is the realization that the revolution is really just the Hunger Games on a larger scale--whether orchestrated by Snow or by Coin, there is only one winner (and it is most decidedly not the superficial "winning tribute" of the Games). Both Snow and Coin's manipulation of reality, through propaganda and the use of the Hunger Games and the revolution as "reality TV" was also chilling, resulting in the need for the main characters to constantly question what was 'real' and what was 'not real': made up for the games, or the propaganda, or the war.As a reader, that moment when Katniss shifted her arrow, sending Coin to her death, was cathartic. She chose a 'third way' of sorts, a choice that meant true freedom and liberation for Panem (even if it potentially meant her own death). Even in this moment, Katniss has likely been manipulated (by Snow, and probably even more importantly by Paylor, whose decision to let Katniss speak to Snow set the final events in motion ... and resulted in Paylor assuming the presidency). Yet, at worst, this 'manipulation' served to fully reveal the truth, allowing Katniss to make a true, fully-informed choice. As if to validate the rightness of this choice, the book ends with the indication that a 'new normal' has been created, one more hopeful than could have been possible under either Snow or Coin. True to form, the wounds remain; yet, life goes on. Through her sacrifice and pain, Katniss has created a better world for the next generation; she has also chosen (wisely I believe) the partner with whom together they can make each other whole. The dynamic between Katniss and Peeta was one of the most important and interesting aspects of the entire series, so personally I found it gratifying to see them together at the end, starting a new family (although even this slight nod to convention was tempered by the need to explain their nightmares and roles in the days of Capitol rule to their children). A more subdued and melancholy ending than is typical for this genre, but one that is ultimately true to its characters and the situations they faced: "happy ever after" is for the 'propos' and Capitol newscasts, not reality. Not understanding this fact would make us little better than the viewers in the Capitol watching the Hunger Games for entertainment, seeing the individuals not as people but as 'characters' there to simply give us a good show. Collins expects and demands more of us.After a long and painful journey, a satisfying, if bittersweet, ending to an emotional, intelligent, and wonderful series that I look forward to going back and re-reading at some point in the future. The Hunger Games series more than met my expectations and has gone down as one of my all-time favorite series that I can highly recommend to others. 5 stars, easily.