MockingJay Review

The day right before school began I wanted to write a review of MockingJay, the final book of the Hunter Games, by Suzanne Collins. Unfortunately, I haven't really set aside any time to do so, but I can now.

To be honest, what attracted me to the Hunger Games series was the language style the protagonist of the story used in expressing her thoughts. Katniss Everdeen grew up in a difficult atmosphere than what we are familiar with. It is in a way can be described as medieval,even though this book is set to be in far future. Because the harsh realities of life she encounters and lives through daily, she developed a very bleak, dark way of thinking, in her case she tends to focus more on the negative. Whether this is because she wants to stay honest with herself or that she lost hope in almost everything, can be decided up to you.

But this kind of serious, survival thinking is different from what I encountered lately from books written for Young Adults (YA). These days, while the vampire phenomenon and supernatural beings seem to be taking over the bookshelves, with the protagonist believing that he/she has the worst life ever, but is admired by everyone in their community because of their attractive looks, which occurs because they are *gasp of sarcasm* supernatural beings. For me, the story line is pretty predictable and yes while I do understand why it appeals to young readers, I don't understand why almost every new book published for the YA section suddenly must follow this trend. It is as if nothing original and truly intellectually appealing comes out anymore. Isn't the purpose of the book to, yes entertain the reader and give him/her the chance to explore something that rarely can happen in real life in order to help expand the imagination, but also to help explore some of the reality issues that we or someone are experiencing in their own lives, or perhaps some moral lesson or fresh perspective as how to live or enrich our lives with. It just seems to be that books today have lost this and mainly just focuses on getting the reader to be drawn to it initially and when the reader is done, nothing much is gained. Only recognition for what teens want in their lives--romance mixed with danger and the feeling of pleasure of being the exception.

I am rambling on here. Anyways, MockingJay is a great book and great way to end the series to the Hunger Games. It covers everything that has been leading on to this moment rather quickly, ******Spoiler***** since no one would expect the whole Capitol to change in one book. I was a bit turned off by the fact that Peeta was changed into some mad person, who was so confused that he couldn't fend for himself, since I wanted him to be the type of person that no matter what happens, he can somehow always turn around and stay the person who he was. I guess the author's point is that once too many things happen to one person, no one can actually be exactly the same person he was. I especially liked the ending, which was very charming and delivered in a way that one would expect Katniss to deliver in. I recommend reading all of the Hunger Games books and to recommend that you shouldn't take the books so seriously as even though some scenes may be graphic, it is a book used to gain your attention and there is no real life lesson to be found from this. But it is a refreshing perspective, something different from the usual YA novels that are being published today.