*SPOILERS*
I actually finished this book yesterday, after spending most of the day devouring it. I have to say this at the start- it was not my favorite of the three. Heck, it was probably my ~least~ favorite of the three. Part of the way through it, I looked up to tell my boyfriend that it's going to make one heck of a movie when they get around to it. But then I realized, therein lied the problem--it felt too much like a movie. Constant drama, not enough downtime to allow the characters to reflect. You knew something out of the ordinary crazy drama was about to happen the moment they had a breather, because they weren't allowed to. Now, I understand that books are made to be entertaining, but there's something -better- about a book than a movie because it takes the time to spend on details that might not necessarily matter. Mockingjay read too much like a movie script for me to enjoy it like a book.
I AM happy to say that she ended up with the guy I thought she belonged with. In Hunger Games, I was all for Gale, but once I realized the sheer amount of what Peeta did for her, I couldn't help but care about him most. And he became my favorite character. I read through Catching Fire in nearly one sitting mostly because I was afraid for his life!
Other than the drama being shoved down our throats, I wasn't happy with the blatant drug abuse. It annoys me when I'm reading a book and every time I turn around, the character is passing out and waking up somewhere else. Like that's the only way the author knows how to segue into a new scene. This was kind of like that, except she was CONSTANTLY in the hospital, or being drugged, or waking up after passing out. Does she not know how to go to sleep and wake up normally? But not just her- many of the other characters were very attached to the morphling or alcohol. Understandable in real life. Maybe not acceptable in children's books.
I didn't like the ending. Felt like the author killed her sister just out of spite for the character. As if she hadn't suffered enough. And killing Finnick off enraged me. He was a hero in his own right. You could take his story and turn it around and he could be the main character- but instead he got thrown out like trash. I hate when characters that are likable but not the main one, get killed off just because. Movies do it, too. You can almost 90% of the time tell who is going to survive. The mostly pretty, "smart" girl (not the prettiest one, because that one is generally the "slut" and dies early on), and -maybe- the guy she gets to spend happily ever after with.
I have a whole list of reasons I didn't like this book, so bare with me. This is an overall theme in all three though. Katniss sounds like a heartless bitch. We never get a chance to see how she actually feels about things until her sister dies. Most of it is just an interpretation of what she sees, and that's frustrating. If we're supposed to be in her head, why don't we know what emotions she's having? She doesn't have many unique thoughts about anything. Instead, all we get is her constant confusion. How can she be a hero if she's walking around without an idea in the world about what's actually going on? And when she does things, we don't get to see her reasoning about it. Because of this, I think the book would've, and ought to have been, better written from a third person point of view. I felt cheated being inside the characters head but being kept out of her innermost thoughts.
I do, however, applaud her for killing the new prez. The moment Boggs mentioned Katniss was a threat because she didn't support her, I knew she was just another tyrant and needed to be taken out of the picture. So thankfully she was!
Let's go back to something easy- my favorite part. My favorite part in this book was the end when she finally told Peeta she loved him. It was a relief that he could finally be happy and we finally got to see what she felt.
My least favorite part was the mutts. Very unhappy with Finnick's death, again.
Feel free to add comments on how you interpreted this book!
