Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Whelp. I should not have put on mascara right before I choose to finish rereading this book in public. Major mascara + water induced eye stinging.

If you haven’t read this series please do not read, super spoiler heavy. Just know I recommend reading it very highly.

I really love this series. I actually think that this series gets better as I get older. I find it more and more poignant as I encounter this story in different points of my life. I find myself more and more understanding of Katniss, and (as in relevant to now) more interested in figuring out ways to effect change in my society while also preserving my own and other’s happiness.

I am very interested in what book, if any book, Suzanne Collins will follow this up with.

I adore the ways in which Katniss was faced with different forms of evil. Snow’s cold-hearted ruthless desire for power, his measured calculating way of acquiring it. Coin’s very different coldness, her own search for power that really, in the end, isn’t that different from Snows. We are shown how evil is made law, it is done by small groups of people. Katniss herself kills ruthlessly in this book, she is so traumatized by every facet of her life and as a result is so cut off from her emotions that she is quite capable of cruelty, and if you commit a slight against her she will remember it forever. Plutarch is a different kind of evil. He does not care about other peoples pain as long as it can be used to manipulate others into the outcome he wants. The capital citizen stand by and consume atrocity after atrocity as entertainment, unable to apply their own humanity to others. The people of District 13 content in their safety to leave others to suffer. I just think this book is masterful in holding a mirror to different kinds of human cruelty and indifference.

I love the ending. A lot of times when a character has children to end a series it is used to illustrate that the trauma has ceased and nothing bad will be happening any longer. It often feels cheap or unearned or like an overly convenient way to end a series. But Katniss’ own trauma is so wrapped in how children are treated where she is from, in the fear of an emotional connection because so is so bone-deep afraid of becoming a mother who is unable to protect her children from institutional violence that her having children that play in District 12 where their ancestors were burned to death, where their mother and father were traumatized over and over, is a moment that adds something important to the story. I like that the story condones finding people to surround yourself that you choose because they make you better. It is not a secret that I hate Gale, but I think this book showed excellently the ways in which Katniss and Gale had differences that never would have been possible to reconcile. I like that we were shown our heroes have been impacted forever by their trauma, that they have lasting effects, but that this does not mean they will never be able to have anything fulfilling about life.

I particularly love the part of this book that takes place in the Capital, because it is action-packed, emotional, and low-key because that’s when Peeta is back in the picture for a sustained period of time. I clearly like Peeta, he is just an excellent character and I like what he makes Katniss have to confront in this book, which is her own inability to not meet hurt, even unintentional hurt, with cruelty. I just love this book.

If you also have not revisited these books, I recommend doing so. I truly love these books and intend to continue to come back to this series periodically throughout my life.

I gave this book five stars on Goodreads and finished my reread on March 26th, 2019.