Mockingjay

WARNING: If you haven’t read Hunger Games or Catching Fire and plan to (why wouldn’t you?!), you should skip this review. I’m not really going to give a detailed synopsis because I don’t want to ruin anything inadvertently. Mockingjay was awesome. That’s all you need to know at this point. When you’ve read the whole series, you can come back to this post.

Mockingjay is the long-awaited final installment of the Hunger Game series by Suzanne Collins. At the end of Catching Fire, Katniss and some of the other tributes have been saved from their return into the arena by Haymitch, Head Gamemaker Plutarch and others trying to thwart the Capitol’s cruel plans at keeping the Districts in line through the Hunger Games. Mockingjay begins with Katniss being nursed back to health and taken, along with her family, Gale and other survivors of District 12’s meltdown, to District 13. Here, President Coin has been orchestrating the rebellion against President Snow and the Capitol. Katniss is persuaded into becoming the face of the rebellion as the mockingjay, something that began during the Hunger Games and has grown ever since. Throughout Mockingjay, she, Gale, Haymitch and an army of others aid the other Districts in rising up against the Capitol, attempt to save Peeta after having been intercepted by the Capitol, and strive for a better life for all the citizens of Panem.

I’m going to stop there. I’m not sure how I was expecting this series to end but I’m happy with the closure Collins provided. Certain characters died that I wasn’t expecting but I was pleased with who Katniss ended up with. Even though I loved this book, it was probably my least favorite of the series. I had put a lot of pressure on it to deliver but again, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. As a whole, these 3 books are out of the ordinary, well written and can be enjoyed by all, not just young adults.