Grade: D+
Not Recommended.
Huzzah! The end of The Hunger Games trilogy is here!
Let me answer the question you all are thinking...why did I read this if I disliked the first two so much. One reason being a huge glass of shut up juice to certain Hunger Games fanatic friends. Another reason is to validate myself for figuring out the ending after less than 50 pages of The Hunger Games.
I'm not going to add spoiler warnings because if you have only the slightest clue what the books are about, you can guess the ending. If I spoil anything for you, sorry. You can thank me later when I have saved you the time of reading these three books.
Having the ending figured out in book one isn't saying much. It's not like Suzanne Collins made it all that difficult when she spells out the logical ending. The whole series has been nothing but predictable, so why should the series conclusion be any different.
We left off in Catching Fire with the districts rebelling against the Capitol and the very likely result being an all out war. Surprise surprise, here in Mockingjay war has broken out. After the Capitol bombed district 12, the survivors were taken to district 13. Katniss and the rebels who rescued her are plotting on how to kill President Snow. Let me rephrase, the rebels minus any effort from Katniss are plotting. Katniss is her usual dumb as dirt puppet self incapable of any original thoughts and ideas. Peeta has been taken by the Capitol and brainwashed to think that this is all Katniss' fault and she needs to be stopped. Gale is his usual Edward/Jacob self. The rebels want Katniss to own up to her Mockingjay title and be the image of the rebels where a television crew can follow her around and make rebel propaganda videos to show to the citizens of Panem and the Capitol. In true Mary Sue form, Katniss stays in her puppet like state and lets everyone else tell her what she should do.
Suzanne Collins is a lousy writer, plain and simple. Lousy is probably paying her an undeserved compliment. What really steamed my beans in this book were the paragraphs consisting of sentences of 5 words or less. I'm dead flipping serious, there was at least one paragraph of 2 and 3 word sentences with one lonely 5 word sentence thrown in. Every page had 2 and 3 word sentences...every stinking page! Surely her editors mentioned changing some of those periods into commas, but if those suggestions were made they were made on deaf ears.
The plot is formulaic and predictable as usual and still ripping off other (better) books. The plot "twists" can be figured out in no time. There's still no page turning suspense or gripping action. Katniss is a puppet who still cannot think for herself. Strong female character that teens can look up to...not in your lifetime. Characters with silly names are introduced and killed off, same with people close to Katniss. Peeta still fits into this little pathetic love triangle of Katniss-Gale-Peeta. Gale is equally as uninteresting. The only character remotely close to interesting is Buttercup the cat.
If you are reading the series expecting a satisfying conclusion, you picked the wrong series. The ending is rather brief and doesn't wrap up all that much. Naturally Katniss and Peeta end up together and have a couple of babies, because really who else would she have ended up with? Things in district 12 start coming around as soon as President Snow and President Coin have died. Haymitch raises geese because apparently they require little effort to raise and he can continue being drunk while raising them.
Allow me to pause and wipe the snark and sarcasm off my chin.
This series was bad, really really really bad. The worst of the three books is hands down The Hunger Games. If you can stomach that, you become a little desensitized to books 2 and 3 being garbage. Or maybe the rest of you cheated and looked up the series spoilers. I stupidly clung to the hope that there was something redeeming somewhere in the series. There is nothing of the sort. In hindsight I should have stopped after book 1 when one of my fangirl friends all but confirmed my predictions of books 2 and 3. Clearly I am a glutton for punishment. Stephenie Meyer may be a lousy author, but at least she can entertain me.
Mad Magazine really needs to parody books two and three to spare even one person from reading that dreck. Their parody of The Hunger Games is hilarious.
If I could retitle the series it would look something like this:
The Hunger Games would be The Hunger Pains.
Catching Fire would be Catching Gonorrhea.
Mockingjay would be Mockingjerk.
May the odds be ever in your favor of not reading this series. Otherwise don't say I didn't warn you.
