By Suzanne Collins
Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.
It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans -- except Katniss.
The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay -- no matter what the personal cost.
So I got to sneak into my public library and skip over the wait list because I convinced (rather easily) the librarian I could read the book in a day. I knew that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get a chance to finish the series for a few months at least. So, in a fashion that probably wasn’t the best course of action while in school and with homework to finish, I devoured the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Now, it’s hard to talk about this book without giving things away, but it was a chilling and poetic tragedy to the end of Katniss Everdeen’s story. It was interesting to take stock of how I felt about the book as a whole. Unlike the first two books in the trilogy, this book is not about the Hunger Games. It’s about war. Cold, hard, and horrific war. To be kind, it was disturbing to read. There are tortures, murders, and scenes of outright bloodshed that left me feeling nauseous. But, with all of the terrible things that happen, I can say this: This book is written better than well. I have a profound respect for Suzanne Collins’s skill as a writer. She makes the events real. There isn’t an ending where the bad get their just desserts, and the good live happy warm lives. People are scarred from their experiences, people die that don’t deserve death. Good people are never the same. It felt like an echo of a thing I had never experienced first hand, and it went down like a cold slimy worm that just wiggled in my stomach for days. I can’t say that I can recommend this book to people simply because it was so terrible in it’s depiction of the worst in human nature. But it made me think. I won’t ever have to read them again though, they left that deep an impression on my mind…whether that’s a good or bad thing is yet to be seen.
Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.
It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans -- except Katniss.
The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay -- no matter what the personal cost.
So I got to sneak into my public library and skip over the wait list because I convinced (rather easily) the librarian I could read the book in a day. I knew that if I didn’t, I wouldn’t get a chance to finish the series for a few months at least. So, in a fashion that probably wasn’t the best course of action while in school and with homework to finish, I devoured the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Now, it’s hard to talk about this book without giving things away, but it was a chilling and poetic tragedy to the end of Katniss Everdeen’s story. It was interesting to take stock of how I felt about the book as a whole. Unlike the first two books in the trilogy, this book is not about the Hunger Games. It’s about war. Cold, hard, and horrific war. To be kind, it was disturbing to read. There are tortures, murders, and scenes of outright bloodshed that left me feeling nauseous. But, with all of the terrible things that happen, I can say this: This book is written better than well. I have a profound respect for Suzanne Collins’s skill as a writer. She makes the events real. There isn’t an ending where the bad get their just desserts, and the good live happy warm lives. People are scarred from their experiences, people die that don’t deserve death. Good people are never the same. It felt like an echo of a thing I had never experienced first hand, and it went down like a cold slimy worm that just wiggled in my stomach for days. I can’t say that I can recommend this book to people simply because it was so terrible in it’s depiction of the worst in human nature. But it made me think. I won’t ever have to read them again though, they left that deep an impression on my mind…whether that’s a good or bad thing is yet to be seen.
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