Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It was okay. Nothing spectacular. But out of all of the books, Mockingjay confused me at some parts.

When I read Hunger Games, I was able to read it through and not really miss anything. It was straightforward. I also felt that Catching Fire was similar in that sense. Mockingjay...there was parts that confused me and I had to reread in order to understand what was going on. This is even worse, because a character dies and I didn't even get it until a few pages later.

Another thing that I didn't like was the resolution to the love triangle. Technically there was, but let me explain what I mean. I hate love triangles. Everything about it annoys me, especially the Team Boy 1 Team Boy 2 cheer teams. Annoying. But I never really felt like the romance was developed enough to pick a side.

In Hunger Games and Catching Fire, Gale doesn't really have a personality and since Peeta is shown the most, you already know that he loves Katniss. It's one sided, because in Catching Fire Katniss pretty much chooses Gale. It's just that she wants Peeta to be there for her, which is kind of selfish and a tease but oh well. In the end, she chooses Gale.

Then she forgets about that in Mockingjay and the author changes Gale from having no personality, or having a revenge personality and Katniss isn't liking that. I almost feel bad for Gale, because he never really had a chance with her. Gale was made out to be a horrible jerk, but I never really understood why. Katniss didn't see what happened in District 12, he did and so he wants revenge. Plus, she mentions that he was always like this.

I hate love triangles, but at least give both guys a chance. In the end, she does go with one of them but that's due to outside forces and him being there while the other isn't. She doesn't choose a guy. She just lets things happen and stays with the one who is there. 

I also didn't understand how Finnick, who seemed perfectly fine at the end of Catching Fire, is a huge mess in Mockingjay. What happened to him?

The thing that I think disappointed me the most in the novel was the fact that we don't see many of the things happening, due to Katniss being asleep or in the hospital.

I did like Peeta's hijacking. I didn't like Katniss' reaction to the hijacking though.

I did like that Katniss mirrored her mother. She originally thought so badly of her for checking out, but Katniss ends up doing the same thing for much longer. I thought it was interesting to see.

I did like that characters died, because it's a war and it's expected to happen. It's mostly fodder characters though.

All in all, I felt like this was a bit rushed and not as exciting as the first two books in the series. I was ultimately disappointed with this.