Mockingjay ~ Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay ~ Suzanne Collins

SPOILER ALERT! This book is part of a series. If you have not read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, read on at your own risk!

I began reading Mockingjay already in distress; the end of the previous book was such a cliffhanger. I was surprised that the pace did not pick up where the preceding story left off. If anything Mockingjay starts off rather slowly. The author allowed so much time to pass for the characters that the action had slowed down again.

It was interesting; I should have felt relieved that District 13 existed and happy that they essentially saved Katniss’s life, but when I read the description of District 13 I was immediately put on edge. This place was definitely not like the Capitol, but something wasn’t right here either. I think it was the description of the living quarters that first set me off. “There were more than enough clean white living compartments, plenty of clothing, and three meals a day. The compartments had the disadvantage of being underground, the clothing was identical, and the food was relatively tasteless.” Yes, the idea of an underground community, where everyone lives in plain white rooms and wears identical clothing, creeped this non-conformist reader out! I thought, “Ugh! Yeah that sounds safe, safe like a prison!” But I guess if everything were perfect in District 13 then people wouldn’t have wanted anything more. After all, wanting a different way of life was the whole purpose of starting a rebel war in the first place.

The things Katniss experiences as the rebels battle with the Capitol often disturbed me greatly. I was just starting to be fond of some characters, and here they were being brutally killed. It was getting to be a bit much. I found myself thinking of my friends who shy away from dark, disturbing reading material. “Well, I definitely won’t be recommending this one,” I said to myself. But this was also the point when I really began to understand the point of the books and the author message regarding the current state of the world. (See my review of the previous book, Catching Fire for more on that.) I realize now that I jumped ahead of myself a bit in that review. Mockingjay is the book that truly reveals the horrors of war. The hunger games featured in Books One and Two of this series do point out the ruthlessness and desensitization that are needed to battle against other human beings, but it’s not until the war starts affecting people who aren’t even participating that the true senselessness of the violence sinks in.

I found myself once again reading on and on trying to find any clue that Peeta (now held captive by the Capitol) was going to be okay. And the author very cleverly kept the answer to that question hidden. His fate is unclear until the very end of the story. Mockingjay is a very well written novel. Even more so than the first two books, it keeps you reading. The main characters are in danger for most of the story. Many of the events that happen feel so wrong, so unfair; the reader has the overwhelming sense that justice must be carried out at some point. But the beauty of the novel is that as the story progresses it becomes less and less clear just who “the bad guys” really are. And isn’t that one of life’s biggest lessons? Right and wrong so often depend on one’s perspective. So much time is spent these days looking for a “bad guy” to blame when our time could be so much better spent elsewhere.

If you choose to read The Hunger Games series, make sure you see it through to the very end. Read all three books. The series can only truly be appreciated in its entirety. Adults and teens alike will find themselves caught up in the intense, fast-paced narrative, but there are deeper meanings that will take more time to digest. And therein lies the true value of Suzanne Collins’s work. As so many great books do, it keeps the readers thinking long after they have finished reading.