Mockingjay (The Hunger Games, Book 3)

It took me nearly a week to read Mockingjay. Not that it's an overly long book, or so dull I couldn't stay with it, but because I wanted to luxuriate inside its pages for as long as possible. And once I did finish, I felt an overwhelming sadness to leave Katniss and her world behind, though much satisfaction at how it all played out. Maybe it wasn't precisely as I'd pictured, but it certainly felt right after fighting alongside Katniss through two Hunger Games and the start of a revolution.

Just to sum up Mockingjay's major points: We pick up the story as Katniss has awoken in District 13, lifted out of the arena by Haymitch and Co., leaving Peeta behind to face the devastation wrought when the arena exploded. Katniss, frail in both body and spirit, must come to terms with her unwilling abandonment of Peeta and the new life she must face as the symbol of the fight against the Capitol. Known as the Mockingjay, she now has the power to rouse the other Districts, yet she continually finds herself at odds with those around here and always aware of how Peeta must be suffering because of her deeds. Along the way, Katniss must also come to terms with her feelings for Gale and the loss of lives that can be laid at her feet. It's almost more than she can handle.

I loved every page of Mockingjay, though this Katniss is somewhat removed from her earlier incarnations. However, I found that in itself realistic: just how much can a teenager be expected to endure before she shuts down or cracks? Katniss is still, at heart, the Katniss we've known and loved, yet she walks a thin line between doing what's right and knowingly placing herself and others in danger. And when it comes down to it, she's still no good at following rules or even listening to authority.

It's exceedingly hard for an author to end a beloved series in the way everyone hoped because we all have our visions for how we'd like to see it end. However, Ms. Collins takes us into unexpected territory with Katniss; we see a softer, fragile girl who once again rises to the occasion against all odds. I confess to shedding a few tears when the major loss came to Katniss, though other losses were almost as devastating. My most minor quibble is the amount of time Katniss spends unconscious and recovering, but I can forgive the author that because I came away with a feeling of resolution that felt...well, just felt right. Along the way, I came across moving scenes that made my heart wrench and fevered chases that made it race, and I ultimately feel as though Katniss and her world were done justice. Highly, highly recommended for those with an open mind to all possibilities.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the unflinching, brutal first two books of the Hunger Games series, but even so, I don't think I was quite prepared for how good Mockingjay is, both as a conclusion to the series and a brilliant stand-alone work. Whereas The Hunger Games and Catching Fire touch on themes such as the effects of violence and conflict on the participants, Mockingjay goes a step further, making the explicit connection that's been there all along and making the theme crystal clear: this is a series about the horrors of war, and what it does to all of us, participant and bystander, foe and friend. Mockingjay isn't an easy book, and those expecting even the tense violence of the first two novels may not be prepared for the brutality and cruelty on display here. Indeed, many fans of the series are rebelling against the final book, resenting its pessimism and bleak worldview. It's not a feeling I sympathize with. What drew me to The Hunger Games in the first place was its honestly and unflinching nature, and Mockingjay is a logical conclusion to that process, as the long-brewing rebellion erupts into full civil war and lines are drawn. There's so much here that I loved - the eschewing of the "chosen one" syndrome among books like these, the refusal to pull punches, the time spent on scar tissue both physical and emotional, the questioning of motives - that I wish I had more people who had read it just so I could have a big roundtable discussion about it. Suffice to say, with Mockingjay, The Hunger Games trilogy becomes one of the best YA series I've had the pleasure to read, and one whose impact can't easily be shrugged away or forgotten. It's not an easy read, but it's an honest one, and that, to me, is what makes it so brilliant.

Reread the last paragraph, then the epilogue. Then reread it again. Then again and again. You'll feel better.

This was a brilliant conclusion to the trilogy. I can only compare it to "Ender's Game" - and that is extremely high praise, indeed.

When I first closed the book last night, I felt shattered, empty, and drained.

And that was the point, I think. I'm glad I waited to review the book because I'm not sure what my review would have been.

For the first two books, I think most of us readers have all been laboring under the assumption that Katniss Everdeen would eventually choose one of the two terrific men in her life: Gale, her childhood companion or Peeta, the one who accompanied her to the Hunger Games twice. She'd pick one of them and live happily ever after with him, surrounded by friends and family. Somehow, along the way, Katniss would get rid of the awful President Snow and stop the evil Hunger Games. How one teenage girl would do all that, we weren't too sure, but we all had faith and hope that she would.

"Mockingjay" relentlessly strips aside those feelings of faith and hope - much as District 13 must have done to Katniss. Katniss realizes that she is just as much a pawn for District 13 as she ever was for the Colony and that evil can exist in places outside of the Colony.

And that's when the reader realizes that this will be a very different journey. And that maybe the first two books were a setup for a very different ride. That, at its heart, this wasn't a story about Katniss making her romantic decisions set against a backdrop of war.

This is a story of war. And what it means to be a volunteer and yet still be a pawn. We have an entirely volunteer military now that is spread entirely too thin for the tasks we ask of it. The burden we place upon it is great. And at the end of the day, when the personal war is over for each of them, each is left alone to pick up the pieces as best he/she can.

For some, like Peeta, it means hanging onto the back of a chair until the voices in his head stop and he's safe to be around again. Each copes in the best way he can. We ask - no, demand - incredible things of our men and women in arms, and then relegate them to the sidelines afterwards because we don't want to be reminded of the things they did in battle. What do you do with people who are trained to kill when they come back home? And what if there's no real home to come back to - if, heaven forbid, the war is fought in your own home? We need our soldiers when we need them, but they make us uncomfortable when the fighting stops.

All of that is bigger than a love story - than Peeta or Gale. And yet, Katniss' war does come to an end. And she does have to pick up the pieces of her life and figure out where to go at the end. So she does make a choice. But compared to the tragedy of everything that comes before it, it doesn't seem "enough". And I think that's the point. That once you've been to hell and lost so much, your life will never be the same. Katniss will never be the same. For a large part of this book, we see Katniss acting in a way that we can only see as being combat-stress or PTSD-related - running and hiding in closets. This isn't our Katniss, this isn't our warrior girl.

But this is what makes it so much more realistic, I think. Some may see this as a failing in plot - that Katniss is suddenly acting out of character. But as someone who has been around very strong soldiers returning home from deployments, this story, more than the other two, made Katniss come alive for me in a much more believable way.

I realize many out there will hate the epilogue and find it trite. At first, I did too. But in retrospect, it really was perfect. Katniss gave her life already - back when she volunteered for Prim in "The Hunger Games". It's just that she actually physically kept living.

The HBO miniseries, "Band of Brothers", has a quote that sums this up perfectly. When Captain Spiers says, "The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function: without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it."

But how do you go from that, to living again in society? You really don't. So I'm not sure Katniss ever really did - live again. She just ... kept going. And there's not really much to celebrate in that. Seeing someone keep going, despite being asked - no, demanded - to do unconscionably horrifying things, and then being relegated to the fringes of society, and then to keep going - to pick up the pieces and keep on going, there is something fine and admirable and infinitely sad and pure and noble about that. But the fact is, it should never happen in the first place.

And that was the point, I think.

If The Hunger Games and Catching Fire are tales of a dystopia, then Mockingjay is a slight departure for the series. This final chapter in the trilogy is a war story. Panem is at war. The stakes for Katniss and the band of characters that we've grown to love (and sometimes hate) have never been higher. And while Suzanne Collins' work on this series has been masterful to date, she rises to the occasion to give her story the conclusion it deserves.

As the novel opens, Katniss and hundreds of other refugees and revolutionaries have been taken in by the citizens of District 13. The rumors were true, but District 13 is both more and less than anything she could have envisioned. While safety is a fluid concept in Katniss's experience, she is what passes for safe at the moment. Still, she is tortured by thoughts of Peeta, being held prisoner in the Capitol. And she is tortured by too many ghosts. We're introduced to a somewhat more fragile Katniss in this novel, and she is not the only character in a somewhat diminished state. The events unfolding around them, as well as those of the past few years, have taken a heavy toll.

It is in this final chapter that the surviving characters must wage a battle for the future of Panem. Ms. Collins has never shied away from depicting graphic violence and disturbing scenes, and this novel may be the most disturbing yet. For me, the life and death struggles that occur in a war resonate more painfully than a staged fight to the death. There's no denying that this is a dark tale. It is even more impressive, therefore, that Ms. Collins manages to infuse enough humor into the book to occasionally relieve the gloom, and to remind us why we love these characters in the first place.

This third book is a departure in other ways. The pace of the story-telling wasn't quite as breathless. While still very much a thriller, in some ways Mockingjay allowed itself a bit more time to explore the emotional lives and constantly shifting relationships of the characters, as well as the full ramifications of the dangerous situations in which they found themselves. The emotional aspects of Katniss's tale have never been given short shrift, but there was a greater expansiveness here, perhaps owing to her increasing maturity. Of course, fans are waiting with bated breath to learn the outcome of the Katniss-Gale-Peeta love triangle. There is a resolution, one that seemed like the only possible outcome to me. The ending of the book is satisfying, not always happy, but deeply satisfying.

Perhaps the best testament I can give Mockingjay is to tell you that this 41-year-old, responsible, gainfully-employed woman read it from cover to cover between 1:00AM and 7:00AM this morning. Not for one minute was I in danger of falling asleep. I think it's going to be a long time before a story inspires me to want to pull a stunt like that again.