Marvelous Mockingjay

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

This book gets a definite 5 out of 5 gnomes.  Reading through this book there are so many quotable quotes and by the end I know I was pretty emotionally/brain drained.

I loved this book so much.  How much you may ask?  Well, the day it came out when I was at work I bought the eBook version from Barnes & Noble and started reading.  Later on the way home I bought a hard cover copy from Borders with a 50% off coupon.  All together I spent as much as the hardcover of the book would have been without a coupon so yes I feel it was indeed worth the money.

The book starts with Katniss standing in the rubble that was once her home.  Katniss, as anyone who’s read all the books would know, has been through a lot.  She was a different person in this book but she also had been through two fights to the death and is now in the middle of an actual war, I think that would make anybody a loner.  This means that throughout the book she seems more unstable than usual and probably has a severe case of what we today would call PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  Personally I think I would be cranky too if I was in the situation Katniss was in as she says, 

“Right now, they leave me alone because I’m classified as mentally disoriented—it says so right on my plastic medical bracelet—and everyone has to tolerate my ramblings.  But that can’t last forever.  Neither can their patience with the Mockingjay issue.”

Lots of spoilers after this,



It was great having to see the relationship between Peeta and Katniss reform after his hijacking.  I think his being gone made her realize how much he had come to mean to her.  They have their bumpy moments of course with the whole him being programmed to kill her part.  This does lead to both sides knowing the complete truth now so their feelings can start anew and not have any lies for the cameras like there were before.  Another great part is the Real or not Real game that they have to play with Peeta and that it becomes a recurring part of their relationship.

I was really sad that Cinna was dead, I kept expecting him to turn up somewhere but that was nothing compared to the death of first Finnick and then Prim.  I was not expecting her to die at all and right in front of Katniss.  It was heart wrenching especially since she was so much closer to Prim then she ever was with her mother and now she really has no family left besides a mother who won’t even go back to 12 with her.   It was very surprising when Buttercup showed up and was the one that finally made her break down/cry over the loss of her sister.  Katniss and that cat are really very similar.

I believe that Gale never really had a chance with Katniss, there was just too much distrust between them.  Then when it was his invention/bomb plan being used to kill her sister and all those other children there was really no way things could get better between them.  I think the destruction of 12 made Gale vent his hatred out at the world while Katniss really internalized the loss.

I love how Snow is the one he connects everything together for her about 13 and their intentions and part in everything.  District 13 aka President Coin sent her sister to the front lines even though she was 13 not 14 like the age limit Also how 13 sent her sister there as a medic at the age of 13 when you had to be 14 to be a soldier.  How they started the initial war and reminding her that in this war the Capitol had no hovercraft left.  So to use historical events 13 pretty much committed a small scale Hiroshima type attack.

It was great/fitting for Snow that he died by choking while laughing.  It was sad but fitting that both her and Peeta were set/caught on fire it kind of flashed you back to the first games and then it's just made more real because they are actually burning. 

The fact that they live in the victors village together and that many people came back to live there shows that 12 might just be the best place for Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch and the rest who can’t really be themselves anywhere else. 

I see the epilogue as very fitting, just two haunted people trying to move on with their lives.