Book Review: Mockingjay – 2/5

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Beware!  Rage ahead! – I actually read this book a couple years back before any of the movies were around, but I thought now would be a good time to re-earth the review.

Ugh. I think that’s a pretty good overall reaction to this book. Just ugh. The last three hours of listening to this was flat out annoying. I do not understand how people think this is good… I mean, maybe it’s easier to read and skim past Katniss’ irritating inner monologue but when it’s in audio book format there’s just no escaping it.

Seriously though, this book sucks. I only give it 2 starts instead of 1 because it is part of a larger trilogy and I enjoyed Catching Fire a decent amount. Was Katniss less annoying there? Or maybe I was able to ignore her the first 50 or so times and then finally broke.

Katniss is a ridiculous character. She’s supposedly this strong girl – emotionally capable of surviving the harsh world of district 12, of basically raising her family, having the strength to volunteer to (what she thinks) die for her little sister, and dealing with the emotional turmoil that was the games itself. That’s pretty bad ass.

But somewhere toward the end of Catching Fire and certainly in Mockingjay instead of being that strong, smart, independent young woman, Katniss is a quivering lump of jelly who second, third, forth guesses EVERYTHING from her sanity, the sanity of others, who she loves, who doesn’t she love, what people’s intentions are, whether the rebels are good, bad, whether the sun is actually in the sky, if rabbits exist, what the color blue is, whether she should kill herself, whether she should destroy the world, if unicorns exist, whatever I DON’T CARE. JUST GROW A PAIR. SRSLY. Katniss is fricking USELESS. And – just like Twilight and all the other stupid young adult books that think self-sacrifice and multiple lovers is the only way to have a proper love story, Katniss is nothing more than a little girl who can’t look internally and actually figure something out. EVER. Instead everyone else has to do it for her and die for her and trust her and blah blah blah stupid.

Oh – and another thing. Authors that think using nightmares as a way to show someone’s mental distress are twats. Lazy twats. And Collins uses nightmares about three times a chapter. I get it. Life is horrifying. She’s scared. She’s traumatized. News flash, I already know that from her stupid “ahh, I’m so broken and confused and damaged” thought processes that occur every 7.8 seconds.

Katniss and her breakdowns make me want to shake Collins by the shoulder and give her a backhand. Yes, I know Katniss has lost a lot of people in her life. Her dad, friends in district 12, people she knew in the hunger games, other important people (spoilery)…Obviously that’s hard. But here’s the thing. SO HAS EVERYONE ELSE. Everyone in this freaking book has had a hard life! Everyone has lost their family, their friends, other loved one, other neighbors, the list goes on! Yet why is Katniss such a little bi-otch? Why does she has the ridiculous mental breakdowns where she’s silent for MONTHS. Where she semi-kills herself with drugs? Where she’s sobbing and irrational and people have to slap her? Oh yeah, because Collins thinks it’s dramatic or some crap. Instead it’s just ridiculous and it’s a cop out. Do you see Gale falling apart? Do you see any number of other characters falling apart for no reason? Sure, there’s a handful of other with mental issues – Finnick for one – but at least those have some kind of literal mental breakdown. And at least for them it happens ONCE. No, instead Katniss has to fall apart multiple times in the most dramatic way possible. It’s disgusting and flat out annoying.

You’ll probably note I haven’t talked about the plot line at all. It’s fine. Nothing too exciting, a little slow in fact, and pretty predictable. If the characters were less annoying I don’t think I would have a problem with it.

Sorry, I don’t know why this book rubbed me the wrong way. I probably shouldn’t be so angry about it – I should just have shrugged my shoulders and tossed it aside. I think it’s because of the hype though. So many people have read through this half-jizzing themselves the whole time when it’s really just crap. It’s poor writing that stems from a series getting popular before the end.

My last and final outrage was the epilogue.  It wasn’t as bad as the Harry Potter epilogue but it was darn close.  The Hunger Games, of all trilogies, should not end with a sugary-sweet Disney happy ending type of story.  It’s placating to the masses instead of sticking to the theme and, after all the let-downs of the book itself, it isn’t even of interest to me.  Do I care about who is happy and who isn’t?  Not really when I as a reader am so disappointed.

All in all – gross.

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I have to say that I haven’t yet watched the Mockingjay Part 1 movie yet – I have enjoyed the first two movies so far and I hope that Hollywood adapts Katniss as a character and makes her better than this final book allowed.  We’ll see!