Mockingjay

Book: Mockingjay by [Book Three of The Hunger Games Trilogy] by Susanne Collins.

Reading this book was a labor of love. Johanna said it best to Katniss, "... you're a little hard to swallow. With your tacky romance drama..." (Mockingjay, p220). The Peeta-Katniss-Gale triangle made my eyes roll. It must be how guys feel about the romance fodder in their action movies. I didn't mind it in the first two books but in Mockingjay Collins over did it on the amount of pages she dedicated to describing Katniss' feelings for Peeta, Gale, their relationships. And she didn't even convince me Katniss truly loved either. Sure there was fondness for the familiar Gale and lust for Peeta, but who did this girl really romantically love? I wasn't sold on either and having to read through all those pages was tedious.

Another turn off, and this one had me wanting to fling Mockingjay against a wall, were the copious pages (even more than was dedicated to the triangle) dedicated to Katniss' emotional breakdowns. OMG, epic length whining. From Katniss! The girl who wrote off her mother for falling into a depression when her father died. I liked the fact that in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire she was just a girl surviving on her wit and determination. She got knocked down, she used the two to keep it moving. In Mockingjay, Collins made her impotent; she barely did anything beyond snivel and mope. Now, I'm perfectly aware that each of her emotional breakdowns were warranted and I don't begrudge that. I just resent that fact that Collins had me read page after page of Katniss wallow in her self pity and barely get past it. I didn't sign on to read about the real life effects of post traumatic stress on soldiers. I signed on to watch Katniss be her original gansta self and kick some Capital ass.

Collins wrote a war story in Mockingjay filled with intrigue, and what upsets me is she highlighted and protracted the love triangle and the PTS and barely fleshed out the intrigue!  Especially the intrigue at the end! Where are my pages and pages relating Katniss' thoughts on her choice to use that final arrow on the person she did. What was written was just enough to keep the reader uproar to a minimum, but after reading all those useless pages on her love drama and emotional breakdowns, I'd like a little more.

And then Katniss' love triangle becomes a pair bond by default. A "he's there, so why not?" effort. I'm not really upset with this as it's the kind of calculated thing Katniss would do, at least it's in character. But it is annoying. If you read book 1 & 2, you come to realize Katniss is an infuriatingly hard girl. Pretty near coldblooded, but not quite. Couple that with the fact that I really don't believe she romantically loved either one of those boys, made me believe Katniss was going to pull a Haymitch and choose to spend her life alone. So Mockingjay's ending just doesn't ring true for me.  It felt like Collins just threw it in there as an after thought because she realized people needed some kind of resolution.

The final one third of Mockingjay felt rushed. Collins should've told her publisher (if they were rushing her) to wait, just wait. It's a sure thing we'll buy read the book. It's not a sure thing we'll like it. At least she would have done her best [Yes, I'm saying she couldve done better].

I almost wish I hadn't read Mockingjay, but after Catching Fire's cliffhanger I just Had To.