Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

I already wrote a long email to a fellow Hunger Games reader with my thoughts about Mockingjay and a lot of this review is copied word for word from that email, because it just seemed too time consuming to do it all over again. Fortunately, that means it will only be a repeat for one person.

My first reaction when I finished was to think, "Wait, what was this series about?" It has the makings of a hero's journey, except it's not - Katniss doesn't really emerge as a hero, and part of the whole point of the books was to show that her apparently pivotal role was mostly orchestrated by other people, and she doesn't really rise above being the pawn she recognizes herself as (at least, not significantly). And it's not really a story about Katniss's growth and redemption because a) she doesn't have a whole lot to redeem herself from (other than being kind of selfish), and b) she doesn't even really rise above the selfishness or learn a lot from her experiences. And the series is not even about the people of Panem conquering oppression because the people's battle is always sort of in the background, and the end is kind of ambiguous on that front.

And so I had a hard time really judging the series as a whole because I had a hard time getting a handhold on what I was supposed to be judging.

That said, I didn't feel dissatisfied by the end. I felt happy that Katniss ended up with Peeta, because it felt right that she and Gale would drift apart and she and Peeta would come together. I kind of liked that they ended up back in a District 12 that was the same but different. To some extent, I liked the ambiguity of the change in governing powers because that seems true to life.

But it was pointed out to me that a lot of plot movement happened very abruptly. Collins has this way of keeping us in Katniss's world and making us feel like that's where the important stuff is happening, and then suddenly jerking Katniss (and therefore us) out of whatever Katniss is doing and telling us what's been going on in the meantime, implying that the story has been going on elsewhere, but that we haven't really been privy to it. The first time I really noticed this, at the very end of Catching Fire, I thought it was kind of an interesting storytelling device, used to emphasize that Katniss really is a pawn being (unfairly) kept in the dark. But then when it kept happening in some way or another in Mockingjay, it just started to feel like Suzanne Collins was being unfair to the reader by constantly leading us to believe that story was one thing when it was actually something different.

Other things were also abrupt. This includes the resolution with Snow, for all the buildup it got. And the shooting of Coin, though it was not surprising. (I also couldn't quite figure out Katniss's motivation for this one, and in fact by the end of the book it felt like her motivation for everything was just that she was tired and grumpy.) And Prim's death, which didn't have the emotional resonance I would have wanted it to have.

Mockingjay seems to get much more mixed reviews than either of the two preceding books. Within just the last couple weeks, I've had a conversation with someone who didn't just dislike it but hated it, and with someone who absolutely loved it and thought it was the perfect end to the trilogy. I feel like I land somewhere in the middle. I didn't love it, but I also didn't hate it. Actually, when I closed the book after the last page, I felt pretty content, but I also felt the need to keep mulling it over (whether you like or dislike a book, the need to keep thinking about it generally means something good). It was in mulling it over that I was able to articulate my qualms, but they are not enough to make me dislike the series as a whole or to keep me from recommending it.

For those of you who read it already, what did you think? I'm really interested in knowing, whether or not you agree with me.