Mockingjay (Hunger Games) [Hardcover]

I loved the first book, it was literally unputdownable for me and I read it over one weekend. The second book, not so much, but I still got through it pretty quick and hoped it would all come together for this final part of the trilogy. Sadly this was not to be the case. Some of the main disappointments of 'Mockingjay' for me (SPOILER ALERT):

1) The pace of the book is very slow- in the beginning we are told about the drab district 13 routines and what they get up to on a day to day basis. After the very fast paced ending to part two, I was expecting this book to take off from where the last book left off, however it takes a VERY long while before any real action kicks in. I was actually bored for the first half of the book!

2) The fact that Katniss is either drugged up/hiding away from any real action/recovering from some injury or another for a lot of the book does not help the pace. In fact it removes the reader from a lot of the action and the storyline... and whats the point of writing the book then if the reader is not invited or able to become a part of the story?

3) The final part of the war where the parachutes fall and Prim dies, a momentum had been built that should have ended with Katniss reaching and confronting President Snow. It was hugely disappointing that that face off/confrontation was not included at that point. Instead, yet again, she is knocked out and we are excluded from the action to find her in a hospital bed, yet again recovering.

4) Katniss character lacks the resolve/determination/decision making skills that she showed in the first book. Instead she dithers,hides and tries to run away as much as possible. This made her rather unlikeable to me and not a realistic candidate for being the main face for the rebels. It shows the writer lacked consistency in her writing of this character.

5) The careless dismissal or deaths of main characters is unfair on the reader who has gotten to know these characters over three books. To have Prim and Finnick so quickly and carelessly dismissed was very unfair to the reader and for Gale to just disappear like that without any explanation just really baffled me. What was Collins thinking?

I just really wish this part had been done differently as I did enjoy the first two books. But, alas, that was not to be the case!

The districts are rebelling against the Capitol, united by the symbol of the Mockingjay. Katniss Everdeen, the symbol of the rebellion, is now living in the secretive District 13 where she finds that she is to be used as a figurehead to bring President Snow down. However, Katniss is unhappy with the demands being put on her, and also with the fate of Peeta, now a prisoner of the Capitol. As two sides prepare for a final confrontation, Katniss has to ask if her new allies are no better than the enemy they seek to destroy.

Mockingjay brings the Hunger Games Trilogy to a suitably bloody and epic conclusion. Though it has to be said it's also a somewhat rushed and predictable conclusion.

As mentioned in my review of Catching Fire, Collins wasn't planning for this to be a series, so had to scramble quickly in the second book to lay out a larger and more epic story. Whilst laudable, this effort was flawed because the story wasn't originally set up that way, and so many new characters and concepts had to be introduced in Book 2 that the actual plot of the book, Katniss fighting in a second Hunger Games, was fairly rushed. That problem extends into Book 3. Whilst the possibility of District 13 was first voiced in Book 2, we don't see it until Mockingjay. This means that in the space of a 430-page, large-typeface novel, Collins has to set up a whole new faction with its own cast of characters, ideology and goals, then bring in the existing cast and have them interact, then have them unite for the final assault on the Capitol, and then examine the issues raised by these storylines.

Collins does a credible job, but it's clearly not ideal. If the series had been planned as a trilogy from the start, District 13 and its dubious rulers could have been introduced and established earlier. Katniss's relationship with them and her lack of respect for authority, even an authority trying to achieve her long-term goal of destroying President Snow's regime, makes for a solid storyline, but it is under-explored here. In fact, the book is so packed that lots of elements are under-explored, and characterisation suffers. In particular, Finnick lacks the flair and fire he showed in the previous novel that made an interesting character, whilst Peeta comes across badly. Katniss continues to be a more complex heroine than expected, but most of the other characters suffer (and Coin, the head of District 13, is a bit of a two-dimensional figure at best).

On the plus side, the rapid pace means that the book is certainly action-packed, and Collins has some ingenuity in coming up with more weapons for the Capitol to deploy against the rebels. There's also a nice contrast between the deadly serious final attack on the Capitol and the Hunger Games of the previous two novels. This is also a harsher novel: Collins is pretty ruthless with some characters and it's definitely a bloodier book where Katniss has to do some more morally questionable things that in prior novels, which raises the stakes and the tension in the ramp-up to the finale.

Mockingjay (***½) is a readable conclusion to the series, though the rushed pace hurts some aspects of it. However, the series is brought to a solid-enough conclusion, if a reasonably predictable one. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

OK. This is how I rate the series. Book 1 = 5 stars. Book 2 = 5 stars. Book 3, first half = 5 stars. Book 3, second half = 1 star.

Maybe that's being a bit unfair about the second half of Mockingjay, because without a doubt it was well written, but the faults to me were so enormous that I couldn't get past them.
Without a shred of doubt, Suzanne Collins is an incredibly talented author, with an amazing imagination and insight. But she struggles with building any kind of romantic connection or the development of a relationship.

THE FAULTS (Spoilers from here)

Finnick's Story:
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. His character is developed beautifully. We go from abject dislike through to adoration. A masterclass in developing a character. What drives Finnick is unveiled to us bit by marvellous bit, to reveal a complex character, strong, yet abused and vulnerable who you have to admire. His love story with Annie is one of the highlights of the book for me even though their relationship was hardly touched on. I WANTED him to have his happy ending. Then what happens? The author simply throws him away. Gone. Dead in a couple of sentences without a backward glance. To me it was one of the oddest deaths in any book I've ever read. After all that, Finnick's death was just a plot device to rack up the sense of danger. Nobody's safe! Nobody's safe! It was totally and utterly unnecessary. We already knew that nobody was safe. What a total waste of a good character. Rule Number 1. Leave your readers satisfied. That was one of the most unsatisfactory moments in any book I've ever read. It would have cost the plotline and the energy of the book nothing to leave him intact to go off into the sunset with Annie at the end. All it achieved was a lot of dissatisfied readers. A huge emotional let down.

The Mission to kill Snow:
Rule Number 2. If you are going to start something finish it.
What a mish mash this was. Really it was during this part of the book I started to wonder if the author had forgotten everything she knew about good storytelling. I can't speak for the author, but I think I see what she was trying to do. Rack it up, rack it up, Finnick's death, chaos, Gale's capture, rack it up, rack it up, Prim's death, and BANG! Katniss blows up and enters some kind of La-La land of Weirdness.
Except it just doesn't work. It feels more like the author abandons the mission half way through because really, she just can't be bothered.
Conveniently when Katniss returns from La-La Land the war is over. Unfortunately the Weirdness isn't.
It's a massive anti-climax.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Overload:
Yes, we all know people get it. Yes, we want our books to feel real. But we don't want them to be TOO real. That's why we loll around the house reading instead of having a proper life. There's nothing interesting about someone who spends weeks in solitary confinement or hiding in a cupboard.
I know that's the real reaction, but I just don't want it happening to the lead character in an action story. The lead characters in action stories pick themselves up and get on with it. That's what they're there for. To carry the story. I think Katniss gave up right about the same time the author did.

Gale? Gale? Where for art thou Gale?:
OK. So you start a story. Girl meets boy. Now, I'm not a fan of formulas and rules, but there are some things that always work and some things that will always fail.
Rule Number 3: If you are going to start a story with girl meets boy just make sure you don't half heartedly abandon the boy half way through the story. And for god's sake don't have her end up with somebody else unless the boy at the start was evil incarnate. If Suzanne knew that Katniss was going to end up with Peeta, she might have started the 1st book with the bread story, and she shouldn't have invested so heavily in Gale. Remember we want to feel satisfied at the end of a book, or we might leap to the computer and hammer out all our frustrations by writing horrible reviews on Amazon.
All through book 3 I'm waiting patiently for THAT moment with Gale. Only it never comes, even though I'm very very very patient. In fact Gale disappears without so much as a goodbye, never to be seen again. We hear he's off doing stuff in Sector 2, and has apparently just forgotten the great love of his life even though she is now a bit doolally. Is it me?

The End:
I could write a whole separate review about the character arc that is Peeta but frankly; I can't be bothered, so I'll skip to the end which is kind of what every section of this whole book seemed to do.
There are two things that the author really ought to work on.
1) How to end a story so that all the ends tie up and there's a certain level of satisfaction.
2) The development of an emotional attachment between two characters.
Both were so wholly absent in this book that it spoiled the whole trilogy for me.
Maybe she was trying to show that they were so damaged in the end that they couldn't connect to each other or even to their own children.
I have never in my life referred to my daughter as "The girl" or my son as "The boy". Never. It shows a level of detachment that is a wee bit scary.
Surely after 15 years, she's left the Weirdness behind to the point where she can give her kids proper names.
And her relationship with Peeta at the end? What relationship? If they developed one I didn't see it.

The Agenda:
If you have an anti-war agenda that's fine and dandy with me. Suzanne Collins had three books worth of space to hammer home all the dangers of a future Orwellian type state and the horrors of war. Just don't let your agenda obliterate what people ultimately buy books for, which is a good story. I don't buy novels to told how to think. There's a kind of irony there.

A weary attempt at satisfying a publishing deadline rather than any actual readers. The most unsatisfactory ending that I've ever read.