After reading the first two books in The Hunger Games series, there was never any doubt that I would read the third one. If anyone is reading this review who hasn’t read the first two, stop now and don’t continue. You need to start at the beginning with The Hunger Games and read right through. If you have read the first two books, do you really need my recommendation to read the third one?  Just read it.

Mockingjay picks up pretty much where Catching Fire left off.  Katniss Everdeen, the unwilling heroine of the tale, has taken her second battering in the arena known as The Hunger Games.  Whisked away at the end of Catching Fire, she finds herself in the legendary District 13.  Things there aren’t quite as bad as everyone has been led to believe, although life there is one of strict conformity enforced by the scarcity of basic supplies.

Katniss, though, is in a class by herself.  As the “Mockingjay” or the figurehead of the rebellion, she can often get what she wants.  Many from her home District, District 12, were brought here before President Snow had it destroyed.  This includes both her family and the family of her friend Gale.  Peeta did not escape the arena, and his family did not survive District 12 either.

The rebellion is at hand, though, as the Districts are rising up one by one, and District 13 is helping them, waiting for a time to make a move on the Capitol.  Katniss goes along with being the “Mockingjay,” although as time goes on, it becomes apparent that she is once again being used. Still, she does her fair share of using as well, although some of the revelations that happen come as a great surprise to her.  They might not have quite the same level of surprise to a savvy reader, but to a girl in her late teens, it comes as quite a shock.  I found it hard at times to remember how young Katniss really is. She seems to have been through so much, but the times her naiveté shows really drew me back into remembering that she’s about the same age as my middle daughter.

There are plot devices aplenty, which disappointed me a bit.  There were a few too many convenient times when certain people showed up in certain places.  Was it necessary to create the final situation?  Absolutely.  In light of what the payoff was, the story works quite well.  As I was reading, though, it did kind of bother me.

Collins was masterful, though, when she wove this tale and setting. The future she created is a scary one, but one that’s not too hard to imagine if we look at the world around us now with open eyes.  It is more and more apparent that “the 1%” are those ensconced in the Capitol, while “the 99%” are those in the Districts forced to pay tribute for having dared to rise up against them 75 years in the past.  The “haves” do not want to give it up to “the have-nots” and are sheltered from seeing what is going on in the Districts, even as this new rebellion is closing in on them.  Told from Katniss’s eyes, it’s easy to feel her disdain as she makes her way through the Capitol and remarks about the hardship of not being able to find a certain shade of fabric or pair of shoes.  It sort of goes along with trying to drum up sympathy about being unemployed while you’re building a $10 million mansion.

At the same time, those fueling the rebellion are not much better.  It’s hinted at early on that there’s more going on than meets the eye, but when all is revealed near the end, I dare anyone to say they saw all of it coming.

Mockingjay is much more than “who will Katniss choose?”.  Where The Hunger Games and Catching Fire really played on her vacillating between the two men who don’t necessarily actively vie for her attention, Mockingjay is more about her growing and seeing things for what they are; learning about herself as much as about anyone else.  At the end, it’s easy to see why she made the choice she did. It’s about who she can trust and count on, even if that’s not apparent before.  That part of the story is incidental to the rebellion, though, as it’s the world at large that she wants to retreat from; that’s what she’s tired of. Choosing the other would have meant being stuck in that world of politics and game-playing forever.

The few moments I was disappointed in Mockingjay were more than made up for by the action and excellent descriptions.  If you liked the action in the arena, the action in the world at large is described just as well. In many ways, I’m sorry to see the series end, but at the same time, it was better than beating it to death.  This has to be one of the best series I’ve ever read.

Previous book in the series: