Mockingjay Review

This book is riddled with the same Katniss from The Hunger Games; whiny, mopey, detached, bitchy Katniss. She finally is out of the Games, and is doing something she's wanted to do from the first chapter of the first book, and that was to run away, out of the reach of the Capitol. Apparently she's forgotten that, though, because all she does is mope around.

District 13 is her new home, and it's very much a military community. Almost everyone there is a rebel soldier, and everyone who comes to live there is expected to join their cause and take up the strict daily regiment for training and fighting. Food is limited, as are many other things, but the people are better taken care of under the rebel leader, President Coin, than the people of the other Districts still under President Snow's command. Despite this, Katniss entirely disregards their expectations of her in every single way. She refuses to be the symbol of hope, the Mockingjay of the revolution that District 13 has been trying so hard to rescue in order to front the resistance.

Katniss hates Haymitch for not being able to rescue Peeta, hates herself for the same reasons. She hates President Coin, the people of 13, and...well, Katniss hates just about everybody.

The repetitiveness of the book goes something like this:

Katniss is mentally disoriented. She's wearing a hospital bracelet that identifies her as such. She wanders the hall doped up and angry. People try to interact with her and it goes badly. Katniss is again mentally disoriented. Bracelet's back on. Doped up and angry. Another interaction. Katniss is mentally disoriented. Bracelet. Angry. Repeat.

She eventually agrees to be the Mockingjay. Still can't make up her mind between Peeta and Gale. Decides that she will be the one to kill President Snow. 13 gets her face out to the other districts and eventually to the Capitol by hacking into the television feeds. The uprising grows, and after she finally decides to train, she is allowed to go on missions.

For the majority of the book, Peeta is being held, tortured, and brainwashed by Snow. 13 gets him back, but he's been programmed to hate Katniss and tries to kill her. He fails, and 13 eventually gets him mostly back to normal, though no one trusts him. Coin tries to use him to kill Katniss, but Katniss figures it out and keeps a close watch on Peeta.

Out of the many soldiers who finally head off to the Capitol, it ends up basically being Katniss, Gale, and Peeta that are able to successfully reach it. I'll stop there, because there are a few twists at the end, though a fairly predictable and unsatisfying ending.

Ohmygawd, it was tough to finish this book. It all ran together, because it was basically the same two scenes over and over again. And I really fucking hate Katniss. I hate the "love" triangle between her, Peeta, and Gale. I hate, hate, hate the stupid decision the group makes at the end.

I'm glad the series was so short. The entire series is shorter than the first book in the A Game of Thrones series by about a hundred pages, give or take. I feel like my time was largely wasted by reading this, but at least it wasn't much time overall.