The Hunger Games: Mockingjay

The final, climactic, instalment in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay is a real clincher: filled with action, drenched in dramas of all kinds, and so thought-provoking it almost hurts. 

Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice, but her greatest game move is yet to come. A revolution is imminent and it seems that everyone around her has had some hand in its creation and progress… everyone except Katniss. And yet she must play a most vital role when the time comes; she must become the mockingjay, the symbol of the rebellion, no matter the personal cost. 

I’m still blank, stunned, struck dumb by this book. I’m not sure whether I really liked it or not. This final, climactic book is where the stories ceased to be the simplistic acts of love and defiance peppered with conspiracy and political turmoil that the first two books were and become something else entirely. 

Mockingjay seemed to be heading in another direction completely. I found it hard to get into at first. It didn’t grab me as the previous books had done; it seemed shaky and dazed which, when you think about it, actually is quite reflective of the mindset of the heroine. So I suppose that can be classed as something positive really. For the better duration of the book, it’s a war story: the first half is devoted to planning the war and then the second half is devoted to fighting. 

But it’s the final two to three chapters that really stunned me. The penultimate climactic twist of the plot is something completely unforeseen and the dramas that it gives way to are some that are quite unnerving. Still written in the first person register from the point of view of Katniss, Mockingjay is without a doubt the most thought provoking of the three books, sending the mind reeling with questions and opinions of the fragility and hostile nature of humankind, primal, and evolved. It was powerful, shocking, and sad. 

Filled with action, bloodshed, violence, warfare, drama, and inner battles, Mockinjay is a had-hitting way to close the Hunger Games trilogy. If it doesn’t inspire love or dismay for the books, it will definitely get you to start thinking.