Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (also, wrap-up of The Hunger Games series)

So, here we are.  At the end of a trilogy.  The last book.  The end.

Unfortunately, when it comes to good books and characters we come to love, we all want happy endings.  The problem is, they're not practical.  Especially when they come at the conclusion of a particularly dark tale, such as The Hunger Games.

By Mockingjay, Katniss Everdeen has already been to hell and back.  Now she is forced to bear the weight of an entire nation on her shoulders.  Portrayed in the mass media as "the Mockingjay" -- taking the moniker of the only animal to live outside control of the totalitarian government of their society -- Katniss finds herself walking a fine line between hero and scapegoat of the people who support her.  The realization that she is now responsible for hundreds of thousands of souls, all pushing her to lead them -- as well as for the deaths of many innocents -- is a weight almost too heavy for Katniss to bear.  Yet she must fight on, now more than ever, since the one person who believed in her the most is now at the mercy of the cruel tyrants whom she opposes.

Mockingjay is easily the darkest and most heartbreaking of the trilogy.  The author of one of the blogs I follow finished this a few days before I did, and mentioned that she was in tears for most of it.  I didn't believe that I would be.  Ha.  Pride goeth before a fall.  This volume, especially the final few chapters, is moving and heartbreaking.  And without spoiling anything, I warn you here, as author William Goldman did in The Princess Bride -- "some of the wrong people die."  Yet, I'd be remiss if I said that the entire book is dark, with no redemption or light.  There is both, but it comes with a price.

I am so thankful that I finally listened to my cousins Mel and Jen, my aunt Cathi, and oh, everyone else in the literary world, and picked up this series.  I loved it, from start to finish, and I was completely glued to it.  I read three books in three days.  It was excellent.  I highly recommend all three.  Please do go out and try them.

I laugh though, now, because I, like people on my friends list on FB and Goodreads, are left wondering "What to read next?"  Finishing up a series of books is always difficult, even when some things are tied up.  You've come to identify with the characters.  You're left feeling that something's amiss.  Where do you go from here?

Well, I don't know about everyone else, but today I pulled out that most famous trilogy, The Lord of the Rings.  I made it through one of the books like, four years ago, but now I'm determined to finish them all.  I started The Fellowship of the Ring today.  We'll see where this takes me.

But I really will miss The Hunger Games.  Until I read it again, that is.  :)

Rating: **** (for Mockingjay), **** 1/2 for the trilogy as a whole)

Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I don't read a lot of YA literature anymore.  I've already talked about the hate/hate relationship I have with the Twilight saga, and it frustrates me that any time I walk through the YA section of a bookstore, every single book features vampires or other supernatural beings.  Maybe the tweens are lapping this up, but I'm certainly not.  Which is why, when The Hunger Games first appeared on my radar, I figured I wouldn't read it.  Some gentle coercion from my cousins and aunt, as well as almost everyone on The Nest Book Club singing its praises, I took the plunge.

This book is great.  Like most books in a series, it has a cliffhanger ending that leaves you -- or at least me -- unsatisfied.  I had to start the sequel (Catching Fire) last night because I really want to know what happens next.

What (in my opinion) makes Hunger Games so amazing?  It caters to people of all ages and both sexes.  Kind of like Harry Potter.  I discovered yesterday that the 8th grade class in the school across the street is reading this as part of their curriculum.  I also have friends and relatives of all ages raving about it.

Someone on Youtube asked "Is Hunger Games the next Twilight?"  I will try to keep my bias and my loathing for Twilight out of my opinion of this comparison.

It is true that both series have exploded onto the YA literary scene.  Both are written for juveniles but captivate readers of all ages.  Both are written from the first-person perspective of the female protagonist.  But there is a fundamental difference between Hunger Games and Twilight, and that is, strikingly, the female protagonist.  Twilight's Bella Swan is a mincing damsel-in-distress who is ready to sacrifice her whole future for love, despite the fact that she is only 17.  She deliberately puts herself in harm's way, just so that her hero can rescue her, over and over again.  The heroine of Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen, is as far from the female archetype of damsel-in-distress as possible.  Katniss is only a year younger than Miss Bella Swan, but she is head and shoulders above her in emotional maturity.  Her one major goal in life is to protect her loved ones.  Katniss has no time for romance.  Admittedly, she deliberately puts herself in mortal danger...but it is only to protect the person she loves more than anyone in the world -- her little sister, Prim.  In Hunger Games the protagonists are role models of unselfishness and self-reliance.  Not so much Twilight.

IMHO, Hunger Games rates head and shoulders above Twilight and most YA literature of the twenty-first century.  I can't give a complete summary until I've finished the last two books in the trilogy, but considering that I'm 22% done with Catching Fire...I have a feeling that won't be too long in coming.

Rating: *****