Mockingjay by Suzzane Colins

The third installment of the Hunger Games trilogy follows Katniss Everdeen as she is transformed from a child contestant in a macabre televised death match to a soldier and the face of a rebellion. This book takes a drastically different tone from the first two books. The Hunger Games are a romantic metaphor compared to this militaristic war drama. It gets heavy. This book was needed to spell out any lingering analogies, and the social agenda of the Hunger Games finally comes to light

The tone of this book was different from the first two of the trilogy. Katniss and Peeta are separated in the first half, and the book suffers for it. The book loses a lot of its warmth as the effervescent Peeta is held offscreen and tortured. The Gale-Katniss (Gatniss?) relationship gets room to breath, but it has surprisingly little chemistry for a book for this genre. I just don't believe the love triangle. She was never meant to be with Gale, was she?

On a lighter note, here is a photoshop powered illustration of my favorite scene. Bringing down any aircraft with a bow and arrow is ludicrous to me.

A lot of criticism I am reading about the book is how Collins is talking down to her readers in this book more than the others.  I agree with other reviewers that some of the smaller analogies were explained a little too thoroughly. The crazy cat game analogy dragged on excruciatingly long even if it was just a few paragraphs.  I had to set the book down for a breather because of that one. Also the Katniss's fathers song was brought up and re-explained time after time like a dead horse. I can see how even young adults can find that level of explanation condescending.

On the other hand, she finally reveals what the symbolism behind the Hunger Games actually are. This throws a wrench in my co-workers insight on the FEMA camps and reality television caused voyeurism.  It is about war. She drove the point home by making it clear from the beginning that not even the rebels are the good guys, that Katniss can't trust anyone  to be good and pure. President Coin was as cold and as opportunistic as President Snow. That is the whole reason the book was so unpleasant. In war, there is no good guy, and everyone suffers in the end. Collins likens war to the hunger games, in which we watch our children fight eachother to the death for pleasure, and a way to ingrain hatred into our culture.

Other Notes
- I disagree with the LA times book review about Mockingjay settling the love triangle. There was never ever any passion between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale, and Katniss just stayed with who ever stayed around the longest. They DID come to the same conclusion about the strong antiwar undercurrents of this book, however

Trilogy Reviews
Read Review for The Hunger Games (Hunger Game Series #1)
Read Review for Catching Fire (Hunger Games Series #2)
Read Review for Mockingjay (Hunger  Games Series #3)