Rambling Thoughts: "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins

As with my The Hunger Games and Catching Fire posts, this originally appeared on The Book Club Forum and states  my thoughts on Mockingjay, the third and final book in The Hunger Games trilogy.  This was written as soon as I finished the book. 

So, I finished Mockingjay. I'll be honest, I was kinda pumped for it. I was told a lot of the issues I had with the previous book, Catching Fire would be dealt with and the thought that maybe we'd finally get some good action as well as an in depth look at this dystopia kept me going.

I'll be honest, for all I've said about the Hunger Games trilogy I think the setting is pretty good. I like me some dystopian future and I think the general vagueness helps the general setting. On top of that it's something I can honestly believe happening and taking place, with its elements of politics and science fiction. From the very start I've always imagined it to be kinda like the film Zardoz in some strange way. To some this would be a down side, but I really enjoyed Zardoz and imagining a giant floating head instead of the hoverplanes makes me chuckle.

But this world is completely squandered. Collins has the framework of a brilliant future and uses it to tell a pretty crappy story. In Mockingjay we get have the rebellion against the Capitol finally happen. This is great. We should see the war, the battles, the effect it has on the people, the Districts, the toll it takes on the main characters, the Capitol showing fear as everything they have held for so long crumbles around them.

Do we get this? No, we just get Katniss complaining and being a pawn in everyone's schemes. This being a pawn would be fine if she we coherent and consistent, but she doesn't seem to have any particular character. Her decisions often make little sense, and that's only when she is making decisions, which is still pretty rare. She's a chore to follow as a protagonist, caring more about silly things rather than things that actually matter (this should read as "All she cares about is the boys").

I could never tell you what the actual plot of the book is. There's a revolution going on, but the book has so little to do with the revolution. Most of the revolution is over by the time Katniss starts doing anything in particular and the final assault on the Capitol is dealt with so quickly it may as well not even be in there.

We also have the character deaths. Why are they there if Collins is never going to focus on them? Rue's death in the first book help so much more weight than any death in this book. People die quickly, a sentence or two is focussed on them, and then the book continues from there. Even when really important characters die it's barely focussed upon.

The one that irritated me the most was when Prim died as basically no time was spent on that and you'd have thought that this would be a big thing that they really cared about. But it doesn't particularly matter, apparently, even though it should shake Katniss to her very core. Sure, you could interpret some of the later parts as her being distraught because of what happened, but it never really felt that way to me.

Oh, and don't get me started on how rushed that ending was. It just... it just pisses me off that much.

But this is something I've been saving up from when I read this part of the book. I've bookmarked it.

"But I don't know what to tell him about the aftermath of killing a person. About how they never leave you."

At no point throughout the books has Katniss ever shown that she is haunted by killing that first person. She shot them without thinking and only mentioned later "Oh, my, I appear to have killed someone. How about that, eh? Oh well, anyway..." I mean, did Suzanne Collins even check to see if she even mentioned anything about this in previous books? This is why Katniss is such a confusing, convoluted mess of a character. She has no character and seems to be purely built out of what Collins was thinking of putting in at the time.

I really had to force my way through this book. I pushed my way through, hoping for something good to happen but nothing happened. I was excited for the action near the end, but didn't get it. I wanted something from this book, but didn't get anything. I have left this trilogy feeling pretty damn annoyed. I don't understand why people love these books so much or think they are so great. There is so much wrong with them, from a story telling perspective, a characterisation perspective or even from the actual structure of the writing (which I've decided to not comment because I don't want to go into that level of pedantry).

This is all such a shame. I was so hopeful when I started this series. I loved the start of the first book and thought the writing was excellent, but everything just fell apart from then onwards. I know people enjoy these books, but I find it hard to understand why, especially when there are so many better written books out there that haven't received the same amount of hype. Maybe it's my own loss, who knows, but I know for certain that I won't pick up anything else Suzanne Collins writes. Though I might watch those episodes of Clarissa Explains It All that she wrote on. That was a good show...