Mockingjay
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Having galloped through the first two books in the series, I was desperate to read this one. But it did take me a while to get into. Compared to the first two, Mockingjay feels slow and unfocused for the first section, with the introduction of new characters and a new setting and the protagonist dealing with the emotional fallout of the events of Catching Fire.
However, after the first third, the pace starts to pick up and the plot starts to really develop. From then on, the story rattles along, growing more tense and more violent until the conclusion is reached.
And it isn't the conclusion I was expecting. I could accept that characters I had bonded with may die along the way (Finnick! Boggs!) but the sheer destruction and violence of the ending of the war shocked me. Mockingjay is brutal and uncompromising but then that is what you can expect of a society that has been living for years with the televised slaughter of young people.
It felt unusual to have the victors unable to claim the moral highground in such a story but it works very well here - and it is much more realistic.
And although I wanted to slap Katniss at times, I thought she was wonderfully human and very much a teenager. Of course she knows best - she's seventeen! - but of course she's scared and can't think beyond her own feelings and desires - she's seventeen! I like having a hero who is female and brave and confused and strong and clever and who sometimes just can't cope with it all. It makes her very real and a great character for readers to identify with.
I think the romance is background really - the story is more about broken characters finding each other and failing each other rather than a love story. But I'm glad she found a bond with Peeta - they shared an experience that few others could ever understand.
Having galloped through the first two books in the series, I was desperate to read this one. But it did take me a while to get into. Compared to the first two, Mockingjay feels slow and unfocused for the first section, with the introduction of new characters and a new setting and the protagonist dealing with the emotional fallout of the events of Catching Fire.
However, after the first third, the pace starts to pick up and the plot starts to really develop. From then on, the story rattles along, growing more tense and more violent until the conclusion is reached.
And it isn't the conclusion I was expecting. I could accept that characters I had bonded with may die along the way (Finnick! Boggs!) but the sheer destruction and violence of the ending of the war shocked me. Mockingjay is brutal and uncompromising but then that is what you can expect of a society that has been living for years with the televised slaughter of young people.
It felt unusual to have the victors unable to claim the moral highground in such a story but it works very well here - and it is much more realistic.
And although I wanted to slap Katniss at times, I thought she was wonderfully human and very much a teenager. Of course she knows best - she's seventeen! - but of course she's scared and can't think beyond her own feelings and desires - she's seventeen! I like having a hero who is female and brave and confused and strong and clever and who sometimes just can't cope with it all. It makes her very real and a great character for readers to identify with.
I think the romance is background really - the story is more about broken characters finding each other and failing each other rather than a love story. But I'm glad she found a bond with Peeta - they shared an experience that few others could ever understand.