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Review - Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

PLEASE BE WARNED THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS OF BOTH BOOK 1 AND 2 OF THE HUNGER GAMES SERIES AND OF THIS BOOK. DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

Mockingjay by Suzanna Collins
Published on 25th August 2010
Description from goodreads.com
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she's made it out of the bloody arena alive, she's still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge...This thrilling final instalment of this ground-breaking trilogy promises to be one of the most talked-about books of the year. 

***
I'm a little sad to say that I wasn't all that impressed with the book and I think a lot of people are/have been caught up with the whole Mockingjay hysteria and are raving about a book that isn't that brilliant. Firstly can I add that I loved the first two books and secondly I'm not one for slating a book because it didn't end how I wanted it to (like a lot of people did with breaking dawn). I didn't mind how it ended, I just didn't think it lived up to the hype and was actually a little dull in places. It even annoys me a little as I wanted to love this book entirely.

Firstly what has happened to Katniss. She was the kick-ass heroine who took no rubbish from anyone and Collins has turned her into a shadow of her former self completely devoid of the characteristics that made her so awesome. I still love her (who couldn't after what she's been through) but she is a shell of her former self a complete wreck physically and mentally. It summed it up for me when she missed most of the action having passed out, waking up after it had all occurred. The Katniss of old (and I almost wrote Tally there as I have always considered them to be in the same league) wouldn't have stood for that rubbish.

I was always Team Peeta and stand firmly so but I loved the will she won't love triangle between Katniss, Gale and Peeta. Like Katniss both Peeta and Gale are almost unrecognisable. Gale has turned into this unfeeling soldier and Peeta has lost the plot. Katniss, in my opinion, makes the decision she does as she doesn't really have another option and thought it did an injustice to them all.

I was devastated with some of the choices made by Collins when it came to killing off characters and to me the main death of the piece really wiped out the entire point of the whole trilogy (maybe that is going too far but that is how I felt at the time). I know it was a war and people die but it really went a little too far for me liking

Don't get me wrong there were good bits in this book. I didn't see a lot of the twists coming and unlike several other reviews I have read I didn't mind the epilogue (it's the famous five fan in me - I liked the HP one too). I liked the fact that we got away from the games and that the book was more about the political climate built up in the hunger games world.

All in all not an awful book and I certainly don't regret reading it but there is so much I wish had been handled differently if nothing else to have done full justice to the awesomeness that is Katniss Everdeen.

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