Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

August 2010, Scholastic

455 pages, Paperback

Review Copy 

Young Adult, 

Moderate violence, emotional trauma, frequent suspense and surprises, many tissues needed.

Summary from Scholastic

Can Katniss Everdeen win the final fight against the Capitol? Against all odds, she’s survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she is still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no-one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12…

Nayuleska's thoughts

This is hard hitting novel. It felt as though Suzanne Collins had taken The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, baked them in the oven leaving the end result more mystifying, more emotionally shocking than its predecessors. It's not often there's an embargo on a book (or at least not for the books I read). I understand why it happened - this is a seriously engrossing series. 

What happens to Katniss here blew my mind away. Emotionally she is hit so hard she becomes limp, and I didn't think she'd recover from the tragedies in this book. (Yes I had to peek at the end. I then nearly cried. And was then good and carried on reading it). I don't think anyone can really recover from the ending. Trauma of any kind (even hitting your head on a corner of a shelf which I frequently do) affects a person. Every reader has suffered some form a trauma. Most hopefully haven't gone through anything nearly as bad as what Katniss has to deal with, but I think all will relate to Kat in this book. And feel sorry for her. And at times want to yell at her to get a grip (unless that was just me).  She gets hurt really badly, by both the people she hates and the people she loves. The options Kat has when faced with making choices are never good ones. There isn't a happy medium. Those in the Capitol are evil - well, some of them are. And the steps the Capitol will take to squash the Mockingjay means you need to block out time in your schedule to read this in one sitting (if possible). 

Final conclusion: 

Mockingjay will leave you reeling for days thinking 'What?'. And yes, I'm very happy with the ending :) 

Be sure you've read book one: The Hunger Games and book two, Catching Fire.