Forum:Creative Writing Club/Riot\AU's Portfolio

 MOCKINGJAY REVIEW  

Mockingjay is a book made by Suzanne Collins as the third and final book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Now, I bet some of you have no idea what the Hunger Games is, so let me explain. Welcome to Panem, a place where the nation is divided into twelve districts, a hidden thirteenth one that was thought to be destroyed and the capital city. So, the twelve districts each make certain products and give them to the capital. Some of the districts, such as 1 and 2, are treated more kindly than the other districts. However, certain districts are basically surrounded by starved people, like twelve. Also, once before, when district thirteen was still active, the districts waged war on the capital, but it ended with the thirteenth almost being destroyed, although the citizens of thirteen were really starting to live underground. The capital then had to punish the districts somehow, so, they made up the Hunger Games, where one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each district would come to the capital, train and then be sent to a random and normally extremely dangerous location, where each of the 24 participants would have to hunt down and kill each of their opponents. So, the main character, Katniss Everdeen and her friend, Peeta, have been in two Hunger Games, managed not to get killed and have become a fake couple so that people would support them. Great right? Nah. The districts have started to wage war on the capital, district 12 has been destroyed and only Katniss's family, her best friend (or more) Gale and a handful of others have escaped alive. So, now, they're all at district thirteen, preparing for war.

Okay, now that we have the introduction through, let's get started on the actual book. In my opinion, overall, the book is boring, over-dramatic, a bit confusing, depressing and worst of all, incredibly disappointing. I mean, the book is called the Hunger Games series! We wanted this for the Hunger Games! Not some over-emotional story-line about how a girl is struggling with her "love" for two different boys (romance is the worst genre in my opinion) and acting as a figurehead while she never actually does anything when not on camera!! And they keep on talking about "what if all human life gets wiped out", "oh no, I didn't kill my best friend, "ah, I can't commit suicide". I mean, what? It just gets SO over-dramatic sometimes. And about the ending... Well, SPOILERS ALERT!! Well, so, this is a bunch of depressing things that happens in the story... a very good character from district 4 dies, the main characters sister dies, Peeta only gets beaten to a bloody pulp a few times, nearly everyone in the series abandons Katniss, they have to kill a ton of people so they can get the help of district 2, etc. Yeah. Did I mention that the main character tries to starve herself to death? Yeah, oh, I forgot confusing. Okay, so, let's see. The book never states what happens to the world after the war is over, the book says the Hunger Games are going to continue after the war, but it doesn't, no one knows how the main antagonist, President Snow died, Katniss believed the liar who destroyed her home why, again, I have to say etc. Oh, and not to mention, the other books had dramatic moments, but at least not THIS over the top. They had a ton of crazy cool action sections and some deaths, but not overly depressing ones. Ones that were tragic, but weren't just... bad. And they weren't confusing! They also had a ton of good characters, but it seems Mockingjay had all of them fly away and replaced with newer ones that weren't as talented. However, I'm not saying this is a completely terrible book. Well, it kinda was, but it's probably just because the other books were so good, this one's ending was bad, Peeta was only beaten to a bloody pulp a few times, they had some good characters removed or changed and because I HATE romance books. Well, at least it does have those good characters for a bit, some pretty inventive stuff in the scenes that the characters do die (mutants, cool ones) and the awesome cover. And Peeta did get beaten to a bloody pulp a few times. So entertaining to read. Well, on a scale of ten, I'd give it a 6, maybe worth getting at the library, but not for buying.