Book Review: Mockingjay (Hunger Games #3) by Suzanne Collins

Release Date: August 24, 2010
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 390

Source: Bought

Summary (STOP READING if you haven't read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, plan to read them, and want to be surprised) :

"My name is Katniss Everdeen. Why am I not dead? I should be dead."

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.


It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans -- except Katniss.


The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay -- no matter what the personal cost. (From Good Reads)
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Last year I read, but did not review, Catching Fire. I didn't read any reviews of it, either, because nothing anybody said was going to stop me from reading that book. I feel the same way about Mockingjay, but I'm reviewing it anyway because I can't stop thinking about it.

Mockingjay is a fitting end to The Hunger Games series, but I can't call it satisfying. Katniss and Peeta have become two of my favorite fictional characters, and it's not a spoiler to say that they--and the reader--endure many difficult scenes in this book. Author Suzanne Collins dials the brutality of the series up a notch, and Katniss is forced to choose how violent she will be outside the arena. Katniss is physically strong, but after the last two novels she's emotionally broken, and Collins doesn't gloss over that; she doesn't grant any of the main characters a magic protagonist bubble, and she bravely allows the logical, dark reality of her fictional world to overshadow what readers may want for the characters. Be prepared for mixed feelings.

That said, the close of Mockingjay isn't without hope, and the novel does have its fun, humorous moments. Readers can also expect a closer look at colorful, hedonistic, and absurd Capitol ideas and customs. (There's a shop that sells fur undergarments.)  As for the writing, I've disliked the pacing in all three Hunger Games books, and for me Mockingjay alternated between unputdownable and annoyingly slow and repetitive. Mockingjay invites many questions about the ethics of revenge and when--if ever--violence is acceptable. Also, a lot of horrible things happen, and people die in unthinkable ways. These scenes, of course, are narrated in Katniss's matter-of-fact voice, and she's too busy fighting and being the face of the rebellion to feel the full emotional impact. And thank goodness the emotions aren't all there, or readers would be nervous wrecks after Mockingjay.

All in all, certain plot elements felt too convenient, and if you're looking for flawless prose, you won't find it here. What you will find, though, are fascinating, fully drawn characters and an entertaining and challenging read that demands thought and discussion about ends, means, and even storytelling. Most readers of The Hunger Games series already have it on their To Be Read list, and anyone who read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire and didn't hate the books owes it to themselves to see how Katniss's story--and that awful cliffhanger in Catching Fire--turns out.

YA Fantasy Showdown

Omigosh, SO MUCH FUN.

Go HERE, click on one of the characters' names, read what a potential fight between the two YA characters might look like, and vote for who you think would win!

Round One started today.

My favorite match-ups so far? Katsa from Graceling vs. Edward from Twilight and Christopher Chant from Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci series vs. Hermione Granger.

An excerpt from Katsa vs. Edward:

Edward looked back over his shoulder towards the woods one more time, then turned his full attention to Katsa. "You need survival around here. You should go. These are my woods, my clearing. You're not welcome here."


Katsa narrowed her two-toned eyes. "That's what the other girl said."


"What other girl?" Edward's voice was razor sharp.


Katsa shrugged. "She was in the woods. Coming here, I assume."


Edward's eyes narrowed and his voice grew harsh. "You didn't touch her."

Katsa wasn't sure if it was a question or not, but she didn't care. Before she could move, the man had moved across the meadow. He leaned over her, mere inches from her face.


"You didn't touch her," he said. His voice was cold--as was his skin.


"What are you?" Katsa asked. "Men don't move that quickly."


"You know what I am," Edward said. "Say it."


"Don't know. Don't care," Katsa said, thrusting her wrist up into his solar plexus. Edward staggered back from the force. Katsa staggered, too-hitting him was like hitting solid rock.

Too funny.

Boy books, girl books, and playing nice with each other.

Many years ago (about nine, to be exact), a friend of mine gave me a copy of Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce for my eleventh birthday. I'd never read anything like it before, and I LOVED IT. When I finished, I wanted more, and I went on my first voyage into the young adult section at my local library and bookstore to get it.

There's a newer, sleeker cover out now, but this is the one I grew up with.

Tamora Pierce creates strong characters (as in dynamic and round and all that jazz + independence, smarts, and--sometimes--lots of hard-earned muscles). Her protagonists are usually female, and there's usually a girl on the cover of her books, but the male characters in her novels are far from the weakened stereotypes discussed by author Hannah Moskowitz in THIS POST.

The Quick and Dirty:
Most boys seem to skip from middle grade to adult books, with no stop in the YA section. Moskowitz suggests many reasons why, one of them being that all the female-empowering books flooding the shelves have stereotyped male characters into flat, fake people: Boys in YA are rubber walls for our 3D female characters to bounce off of. They're props for girls to throw around to show that they're the stronger sex.

I'm not going to name names, but in reference to the above italicized quote, I think Hannah Moskowitz has a point. There are plenty of cardboard boys in YA lit for female characters to push and grow and change around.

But they're not all like that, which brings me back to Tamora Pierce, who posted THIS RESPONSE to Moskowitz's thoughts. She talks about why she writes girl heroes, and notes this reason for the many girl-geared books around: girls buy books. That's it, clear and simple. Guys don't. They take books out of the library, or they borrow books from girls, but they don't buy. Not like girls do.

Fair point I'd never considered.

Anyway. Both Moskowitz's and Pierce's posts are worth reading and considering. This post isn't about over-analyzing their thoughts or picking a side or a fight.

It's about boy books and girl books, versus, you know, just books.

As a library clerk and a girl with Friends Who Are Boys, I agree with Moskowitz that many boys skip right past the YA section. I don't see as many boys as I do girls browse through and check out YA titles at the library. (Unless we're talking graphic novels, in which case, those readers are mostly boys...and so are the characters in the graphic novels they check out.) For the most part, my Guy Friends Who Read didn't read many books beyond what was required in high school, and now they're in college and reading classics and adult fiction and nonfiction for fun. They never checked out the YA shelves. When I ask why, they say, "Aren't most of those for girls?"

Walk through any bookstore, note all the pink and dramatic photos of girls in the cover art, and I think you'll see their point, valid or not.

There are plenty of YA novels written by males, with male leads. Tammy Pierce elaborates on that. If you read, I suspect you could, too.

What bothers me the most--and what I've been thinking about a lot lately--is that it's okay for girls to take an interest in books and movies with male leads. It's even encouraged. But for a boy to choose entertainment featuring a female character? That's taboo. And if Hannah Moskowitz is right and most female-featuring books relegate males to stereotypes, I get it. If this is so, then it also suggests that the quality of the writing and plotting in such books is inferior to those geared toward males.

This can happen, but boy books aren't all award winners either.

This brings me to Moskowitz's idea of promoting books with Real Boys in them. This, in turn, brings me back to Tammy Pierce, who rightly asserts that these already exist. (M.T. Anderson's Octavian Nothing, any John Green hero, and Maggie Stiefvater's Sam and Cole, anyone? This list is potentially two miles long.)

Moreover, Pierce asserts that, no matter how many girl books one sees around, most books are still For Boys. She's got a point. And the classics shelf? (Also meaning a good portion of what both girls and boys read in high school and college--) Plenty of male authors and characters there.

Hmph. All this differentiation is silly. In a perfect literary world, books would be books, and they would feature strong characters of both sexes, and they would be for everyone, and there would be no stigmas or ideas of "boy books" and "girl books."

But that's not how today's culture rolls. (And I'll admit that it is nice to have very girly books and very boyish books, and that I enjoy pink and sparkles pretty regularly. But that's another set of ideas.)

Authors Maggie Stiefvater writes about similar things here.

And have you heard about the whole Disney Rapunzel movie being renamed Tangled and advertised as more boyish  because girly-looking The Princess and the Frog didn't attract the hoped-for amount of money thing?

Thoughts, feelings, ideas about any of this? (All hopefully more well-organized than mine?) (Also, should I just conclude that being a girl is awesome because I can read girl and boy books with no apologies necessary?)

The Onion Predicts the Next Literary Trend

Minotaurs!

"Plus, labyrinths are really hot right now."

Oh boy.