Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games — (2008-2010) Young Adult. Publisher: Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

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The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins has already proven her talent for storytelling with her recently completed Gregor the Underlander series. In that series, she showed she was able to create strong characters, move plot along quickly, deftly control the rise and fall in tension, and create moving scenes. While there were some weak sections in the series (sometimes the pace moved too quickly, settings often could have been more detailed, and a few characters could have been more richly drawn), by the end she had crafted one of the best YA series to hit the shelves the past few years — a thoughtful, often dark, almost always rewarding series.

I'm happy to report that with book one of The Hunger Games, there is no sophomore slump. In fact, Suzanne Collins returns with a starting book that is more tightly focused, more moving, more quickly paced, more thoughtful and provocative, and more fully and constantly tense throughout than her excellent Underland books.

The premise for The Hunger Games is admittedly somewhat derivative and one could come up with dozens of possible Hollywood-pitch-like pairings: "it's Survivor meets Running Man", "it's The Lottery meets The Most Dangerous Game", "it's...". None of it matters. What very often counts in a genre novel, where many of the same old premises, same old tropes, same old formulas, appear and reappear over the years is not the original starting point, but what you do with it. What The Hunger Games is, is good.

The opening whisks us right through the premise in a few brief pages. We're in a post-apocalyptic North America — in a dystopia named Panem — a dystopia formed out of the remnants of civilization. Panem is ruled from a rich Capital and has 12 districts that provide what is needed — food, coal, etc. Outside the Capital the people are barely surviving, many starving and the rest close to it. Years ago the 12 districts (actually, 13 at the time) rebelled and were brutally put down. As "repentance" and as a form of cold reminder, every year each district sends one boy and one girl (chosen by lottery) to the Hunger Games — a televised kill-or-be-killed event set in a huge arena.

When Katniss's younger sister, Prim, is chosen by lottery, Katniss volunteers in her place, joining Peeta — the chosen boy from her district — in the Games. All of this happens very fast in the book, as does the few days of training prior to the Games themselves. Though the background is quick, it is efficiently concise. We get a clear sense of much of what we need to know: what life is like for those in Katniss' district, what she is like, her relationship with her best friend Gale, her place in the family (she's become the one taking care of the family since her father died in a mining accident), the contrast between life in the Capital and life in the districts, etc. There isn't a lot of detail, and some readers will probably wish for more explanation, but what we have is sufficient.

By the time the Games themselves start, we have a solid footing. Which is good, because once the Games do start, it's all pretty breathless as Katniss tries to survive. There are a lot of action scenes — fights, things blowing up, desperate attempts to save wounded people, etc. — but Collins isn't interested in simply an episodic line of battles, one after the other, showing off various combat skills until the winner is left alone.

Katniss faces many complex decisions — to what extent does she "play" to the watching crowd (a "popular" contestant can gain sponsors who can pay for gifts that can be the difference between life and death), can she really kill another human, whom can she trust, what motivates the people around her, what is her relationship to Peeta or Gale, what debts does one human own another, etc. The third person point of view focuses on her actions and thoughts and so we struggle with those questions even as she does, all while we root for her to "win" through the discomfort of realizing what this means is that we're rooting for her to kill.

We also come to care about Peeta, even as we wonder just what game, if any, he is playing. And the relationship between the two of them is a major point of interest and tension. And while the other contestants, with one significant and moving exception, aren't painted in any sort of detail, we do get enough quick, concise brushstrokes for several of them to have distinct personalities (though I do wish more was done in this area).

Along with getting us to care about the people, and not just the plot points, Collins also offers up some clear social criticism as well as some hints at much larger issues than these few characters or these single Games, both with regard to this created world and our own society. And while The Hunger Games ends resolved and can be read without fear of a cliffhanger, there is enough left hanging in the air that the reader wants to see what happens afterward.

There really is very little to criticize in The Hunger Games, though one point should be made clear. Collins does not shy away at all from the premise of 24 kids placed in a kill-or-be-killed situation. There is no deus ex machina that swoops down and stops the games before anyone is killed or miraculously revives the killed contestant. People die in this book. In fact, most of the people die in this book. And our main character kills some of them. And not by accident. The Hunger Games is as dark as its premise promises and therefore it is not for the very young.

The Hunger Games has a strong main character and several strong supporting ones. Crystal clear, if not particularly beautiful, prose. A constantly suspenseful plot. A quick pace. Moving scenes. A grim tone that adds to the sense that actions matter. An author who has the courage of her ideas. Social criticism. Hints at a larger story to come. A first book in a series that ends with enough resolution that the reader can stop here and be satisfied. 400 pages that pull you along effortlessly. These positives more than outweigh the few very small negatives. Highly recommended. —Bill Capossere

The Hunger Games

What can I say that hasn’t already been said? The Hunger Games has been getting lots of buzz, and by the time I was a few pages in, I knew it was all deserved.

And then it got better.

The Hunger Games takes place in the future, in a dystopian nation that arose from the ruins of the United States. Panem consists of twelve Districts and is ruled from a decadent Capitol. (Try Googling “Panem” to get the play on words. I’m sad to say I missed the reference while reading!) Every year, to underscore its domination of the Districts, the government demands a tribute of one girl and one boy per District. These adolescents are thrown into a vast, wilderness-filled arena, in which they fight to the death while Panem watches on television. This society is very different from our own, but just similar enough to be chilling. So many of us, for example, are hooked on reality TV. Now imagine Survivor, except with life and death at stake, not just money and fame.

Enter Katniss Everdeen. Katniss is a spirited and complex heroine. She’s prickly, sometimes cold, but she’s also brave, and fiercely protective of her own. When Katniss’s soft-hearted younger sister is chosen to fight in the Games, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She’s sure this is a death sentence. The tributes from impoverished District 12 almost never win.

We follow Katniss and her childhood acquaintance, Peeta, to Panem, where they are prepared for their date with destiny. Here, we see the luxury Panem’s residents enjoy, so different from the squalor of District 12. Everything is entertainment here, even the annual slaughter of twenty-three children in the Games.

And then we get to the Hunger Games themselves. From that point on, I was riveted. I read from the beginning of the Games to the end of the book in one sitting, and stayed up until 2 a.m. to do it. Suzanne Collins maintains a nearly unbearable level of tension as Katniss contends with other tributes, Mother Nature, manipulations by the Gamemakers when killings slow down and the audience starts getting bored, conflicted feelings for Peeta, and the struggle to hold on to her humanity in the face of horrific situations. There are deep themes here if a reader is looking for them, and it can also be read as a darn fine action-adventure story. Try not to bite your nails too short…

I admit, though, that I’m not quite sure why [SPOILER here, highlight if you want to read it]: Katniss and Peeta’s gambit worked at the end of the Games. I’d think the Gamemakers and the audience could wring as much gratuitous drama out of a Romeo-and-Juliet double suicide as they did from what actually happened. [END SPOILER}

The Hunger Games is excellent. (I only wish it had contained a map, so I could get a grip on what Districts corresponded to what areas of the U.S. We learn that 12 is in Appalachia, but the others are a little nebulous.) I can’t wait to start Catching Fire. —Kelly Lasiter

The Hunger Games

Sometimes it is nice to be wrong. As a general rule when it comes to young adult urban fantasy I try to stay well away from the mainstream authors. The rule for me has been that if my 16-year-old is reading it and loving it, then I will steer clear of it. In the case of The Hunger Games, I was dead wrong.

Suzanne Collins' take on a post-apocalyptic North America is a cross somewhere between an Orwellian controlled series of city-states and E.E. Knight's Vampire Earth, minus the vampires. Collins does a tremendous job of giving us a bleak, harsh reality from the beginning and uses the hard facts of life to give the story a believable premise. This is not simply a heroine who happens to succeed, but a strong main character grown and tempered by the world she inhabits.

Katniss, the main character, is an eldest daughter, protector, provider in a very harsh life. Her father has died and her mother and younger sister are largely reliant on her to keep them alive by hunting, gathering, and supporting them while they live in a meagre existence at the fringe of a poor society. Collins’ use of this situation to provide Katniss with a believable set of skills and abilities really sets The Hunger Games apart from much of the competition.

The central story of The Hunger Games is that Katniss is drawn into an almost gladiator-like competition to the death against other young people her age for the entertainment of the nation and its rulers. As a father, the thought is as abhorrent a practice as I can imagine; but Collins gives us plausible, if not acceptable, reasons why a repressive government might use such a scheme. It also provides a very, very interesting look at the differences between the elite in a society and the poor who labor to keep them in luxury.

The Hunger Games — not just the title, but the actual competition that Katniss is forced to compete in — is a brutal scene. Collins is very good at painting a picture of young people who are motivated to win at any cost, but she doesn't go so far as to be gory and unnecessarily gruesome. When someone is killed, there is an appropriate description, but she doesn't waste details on an audience that doesn't need them in order to feel shocked.

Of particular note in this story are the emotional battles that Collins takes Katniss through. Her love of family versus her desire to live, her natural aversion to killing another person versus her desire to protect a friend, and finally the need to trust someone who she fears will betray her. These very emotional themes are mixed in with a small, tenuous romantic thread that really gives a young reader a lot to process. It's very well done.

I was prepared to skim through The Hunger Games and to write Collins off as another pulp young adult romance novelist. I was wrong. Collins is a brilliant storyteller and The Hunger Games deserves all of the attention and fan support that is has received. From the jaded critics’ corner, I tip my hat in tribute to a great author and a good book about which my initial assumptions were quite wrong. —John Hulet

The Hunger Games

The news that Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games is coming out in movie form in March 2012 finally moved me to read this book, which one of my young nephews has recommended to me with extravagant praise. That nephew is going to be a darned good literary critic when he grows up, because he’s absolutely right: The Hunger Games is an excellent adventure with plenty of depth to it.

Suzanne Collins clearly set out to make The Hunger Games a book that older as well as younger readers can enjoy. The setting is a dystopia of the future, in a world where the United States no longer exists. It has been replaced, at least in large part, by a country known as Panem. Panem consists of the Capitol (apparently somewhere around what we now know as Denver, Colorado) and 12 Districts, each with a special responsibility — agriculture, manufacturing, and so on. The first person narrator of The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen, lives in District 12, which lies somewhere in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. It is responsible for mining the coal that runs Panem.

Decades ago, well before Katniss’s birth, the Districts rebelled against the Capitol. It’s no wonder: the Capitol takes for itself all the resources produced by the Districts, while the citizens of most of the Districts live in poverty. In District 12, death by starvation is not uncommon – if the mines don’t get you first. The rebellion ended badly for the Districts, and conditions became even worse. One consequence of the rebellion is the Hunger Games, which occur each year. Each District is required to send two of its youth, between the ages of 12 and 18, one boy and one girl, to compete in a survival contest until they are all dead but one. The contestants are chosen by lottery. The lottery itself is tilted toward choosing the poorest of the poor to participate: if a child turns 12, he or she can collect “tesserae” for each member of his or her family, a sparse ration of oil and grain sufficient for a year, by entering additional times. So Katniss, for instance, when she turned twelve, had her name in the bowl four times, once for herself and once for each tessera she signed up for: one for herself, one for her sister, and one for her mother. And the number is cumulative; those four increase by four more each year she collects the tesserae. When the alternative is starvation, there’s little choice.

As The Hunger Games opens, it is the day on which the “reaping” will take place — the choosing of the two contestants. Primrose — Prim — Katniss’s beloved sister — has just turned 12, and will be in the reaping for the first time. She only has one entry, while Katniss has 20, and Katniss’s friend, Gale, has his name in 42 times. The catchphrase, “May the odds be ever in your favor,” applies with much greater force to Katniss and Gale than to Prim. But the unthinkable happens, and Prim’s name is drawn. Katniss frantically volunteers to take her place, and the plot takes off.

My strict “no spoilers” policy bars me from saying much more about the plot. The pages turn swiftly as the contestants are prepared in the Capitol for the competition, and even more swiftly once the competition begins. It is barbaric: 24 children unleashed into a wilderness area to kill one another until only one is left standing. They must scrounge for food and shelter. And even then, the Gamemakers twist the odds, creating adverse weather in the arena, or draining streams, or presenting gifts to chosen contestants that give them an advantage.

Collins expertly plays on her readers’ sense of justice and fair play, creating a sense of outrage and frustration when things go badly, and joy when something good happens to Katniss and her fellow District 12 participant, Peeta, the baker’s son. And there are deeper lessons here, too. The lopsided distribution of wealth in this society is extreme, and the consequences of that are spelled out in detail: the brutal repression of the poor, so that freedom of speech is unknown, and the freedom to travel seems to be nonexistent (the Districts are fenced in). No one grows up to be what one wishes in this society, unless one lives in the Capitol. You become what your parents were or, at least in District 12, you go to the mines. There is no such thing as making a better life for yourself than your parents had. For those who are at all politically minded, this book reminds us of what we have in America, for all her faults, and serves as a cautionary tale of what we could become if we do not solve our problems before they become unsolvable.

I am eager to begin Catching Fire, the next book in this trilogy. And yes, that will be today.
—Terry Weyna

Catching Fire

One of last year’s best, most compelling reads was Suzanne Collins’ dystopic The Hunger Games, in which a group of young boys and girls are sent into a large geographic area for a kill-or-be-killed TV spectacle — a sort of Running Man meets Lord of the Flies meets Survivor meets The Lottery. The book, carried along winningly by the strong main character Katniss, was suspenseful, poignant, and often breathless, ending with a clear resolution but with an obvious nod toward a sequel. That sequel is Catching Fire, and while it’s not as good as The Hunger Games, nor as breathlessly compelling (both tough standards to equal), it’s a strong follow-up.

Catching Fire opens up with Katniss and Peeta back home in their district, living with the spoils of their victory: huge victor’s houses, lots of food, no requirement to work, etc. But things aren’t all great, either personally (Katniss’ relationship with her best friend Gale, Haymitch’s return to drunkenness) or politically (hints of problems, possible repercussions, possible reverberations from Katniss’ televised defiance at the end of the Games). As they prepare for the Grand Victory Tour, a trip throughout the 12 districts, Katniss receives a chilling visit from President Snow and things begin to spiral out of control from that point on.

I won’t go into plot details as there are several twists and turns and, if not surprises, pleasant moments of revealed events. The plot germinates much more slowly in Catching Fire than in The Hunger Games and is painted on a broader canvas — more a slowly growing prairie fire than a sudden ignition and kitchen conflagration. But that’s no complaint: I appreciate that Collins isn’t looking to rewrite the same breathless contest she’s already given us once; the plot is much slower to gel but only a little less compelling and almost never dull (more on that later). Collins has always been good at pace and Catching Fire is no exception — look how seamlessly she moves us in time and space here, from a singular present moment out into weeks and miles:

A light hits us and I put on the most dazzling smile I can. We descend the steps and are sucked into what becomes an indistinguishable round of dinners, ceremonies, and train rides. Each day it’s the same. Wake up. Get dressed. Ride through cheering crowds. Listen to a speech in our honor. Sometimes a brief tour: a glimpse of the sea in one district, towering forests in another ...

There are many such instances throughout the novel, with Collins showing an unerring eye for when to use scene and when to use summary. As always, her prose is crystal clear, not particularly lyrical or poetic (though she has a few such moments) but highly effective and well matched to the story and characters.

Katniss remains a sharply drawn character and one who matures throughout the novel, changing with circumstances — fitfully, naturally, sometimes taking two steps back, sometimes slowly, all of this making her change all the more believable. Peeta and Gale aren’t as fully drawn, nor as complex, but are solid characters and, as in The Hunger Games, several of the more minor side characters are sharply, vividly brought to life in concise fashion.

There are a few weak aspects. One section of the plot feels a bit perfunctory (for reasons that I can guess but won’t speculate on here so as not spoil things), but it’s relatively brief. A few side characters, mostly in that section, are pretty thin. The exposition in a place or two is a bit clunky. And while the plot covers a wide ground, the world of Panem doesn’t have that rock-solid feel to it that one wishes for; the whole thing remains a bit misty: visually, politically, geographically, historically. There’s enough there to carry the plot, but I’d have liked a stronger foundation.

But these are more minor nagging complaints in the back of the head, more often than not easily swept aside by the forward-driving plot and by Katniss’ character development. If Catching Fire doesn’t quite maintain the standard of The Hunger Games it doesn’t fall far below and certainly avoids the dreaded Book Two “bridge syndrome” where the second book of a planned trilogy merely gets us from A to C with little enjoyment. There’s a lot to like in Catching Fire, the plot a true pleasure as it unfolded, and I eagerly await the third installment. Highly recommended. —Bill Capossere

Catching Fire

After finishing the unputdownable The Hunger Games, I couldn’t wait to see what was in store for Katniss Everdeen and her friends in Catching Fire. As it turns out, quite a lot.

Catching Fire picks up six months after The Hunger Games left off. Katniss and Peeta have uneasily integrated themselves back into their lives and families in District 12, albeit with money and fame. Katniss is still torn between her two possible love interests: Peeta, whom she pretended to love in order to stay alive in the arena, and Gale, her childhood best friend, with whom she still hunts illegally in the woods. Then, Katniss receives a frightening visit from President Snow, who warns her that she must make her love for Peeta convincing on their upcoming Victory Tour. It seems their defiant act at the end of the Games has inspired unrest in the Districts. Only by continuing to portray it as an impulsive act of passion, President Snow contends, can Katniss and Peeta stem the tide of insurrection. The consequences of failure will be dire.

We then follow Katniss and Peeta through the Victory Tour, and their eventual return to District 12. But the District 12 they left is not the District 12 to which they come back. The government is cracking down on anyone who dares thumb their nose at the law or the Capitol. This section of the book gets depressing in a way that The Hunger Games, despite its twisted scenario, never did. I think it’s because almost any seemingly innocent action Katniss takes has the potential to get others killed, and often, this is exactly what happens. We feel Katniss’s despair as she realizes there is no course of action that can keep her loved ones safe. We also get tantalizing hints of the rebellions in the Districts. It’s a little frustrating to only have bits and pieces of information, but it’s perfectly realistic. We don’t know anything Katniss doesn’t. With the little information she has, she faces a tough decision. What to do now? Run away into the woods with her family and friends? Stay in District 12 and act against the Capitol from there? Fall in line with the Capitol’s plans for her?

Just when Katniss has come to a decision about her future, Suzanne Collins throws in a plot twist that renders the choice moot. This plot twist is maybe a little too reminiscent of the events of book one, but it’s still exciting and compelling. I only wish it hadn’t taken up so much of the book. Some of the events at the beginning of the book seemed a little rushed, as if they could use a little more page space, and then this section had perhaps a bit too much page space.

I also wished Katniss had been a little more clued-in at times. She can be especially oblivious when it comes to figuring out that people are on her side. I’m not sure how she could miss the significance of a mockingjay emblem when a certain character pointedly displays it to her, or that a certain other character is trying to help her, not kill her, in the climactic sequence. I suppose Katniss’s background wouldn’t predispose her to be trusting, but I still thought her cluelessness was a little much. It makes her a pawn in the events of the book rather than a player. I wanted to see her take a more active role in the rebellion. Unrealistic for a teenage character? Maybe, but it might have made for a more gripping story.

Catching Fire ends with a cliffhanger, and a chilling final sentence. There’s a little bit of middle-book syndrome created by the cliffhanger. The Hunger Games had loose ends too, but for me, there are two kinds of loose ends. One type gives an ending a touch of the “messiness” of real life, keeping the story from tying up too neatly, and the remaining questions leave the reader in thought, not in suspense. The other type needs more writing to resolve, or else the story feels unfinished. The Hunger Games has the former. Catching Fire has the latter.

That said, while Catching Fire doesn’t quite clear the bar set by book one, it was a high bar to begin with. I am looking forward to seeing where Collins takes this series next, and I hope book three sees Katniss playing a larger role in events. —Kelly Lasiter

Mockingjay

OK, HUNGER GAMES fans, you’ve been waiting a year for this book, and the last thing you want is some @#$% reviewer spoiling the plot. So, I will do my best to give my impressions of Mockingjay with as few spoilers as possible.

When a series becomes this popular and sparks this much speculation among readers, the author’s task is extremely difficult. How to surprise a fanbase, when that fanbase has spent many months trying to guess what will happen in the final installment (and almost certainly guessed right on a few counts)? Yet Suzanne Collins succeeds admirably. There are plenty of twists in Mockingjay that I simply never saw coming, and there are other aspects of the plot that I partially guessed but that didn’t play out quite the way I thought they would.

It’s no surprise that this book sees Katniss taking a larger part in the rebellion against the Capitol. The reality of this conflict is more complicated than it looks at first sight, though, and even among Katniss’s proclaimed allies, not everyone is looking out for her best interests. Also expected, and delivered, is a resolution to the Katniss/Gale/Peeta love triangle. Collins avoids cliche in this resolution and doesn’t use the plot shortcuts you might expect. I never really took a side in the Gale vs. Peeta wars, but I think Katniss made her decision for the right reasons, and I am content with this choice.

I enjoyed Mockingjay more than I did Catching Fire, but not as much as I did The Hunger Games. I think this is mainly because the scope of the plot grows broader here while we still see events through only one point of view. Katniss can’t be everywhere at once, and this war is much bigger than the Hunger Games, and so there are several major plot points that she — and by extension the reader — only hears about secondhand.

When Katniss is in the thick of things, though, the plot is as exciting as anyone could wish, and with almost all of her loved ones on or near the front lines, the stakes are high and personal. Katniss has a major role to play, and if you know Katniss Everdeen, you can guess it isn’t quite the role that others have mapped out for her!

Like the previous books in this series, Mockingjay works on the level of action/adventure and on the level of social commentary. Here, Collins gives us a chilling look at war, propaganda, and collateral damage. If you’ve enjoyed this series so far, you will almost certainly find Mockingjay a worthy conclusion. If you haven’t tried this series yet, you’re missing out! —Kelly Lasiter

Mockingjay

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins has certainly been one of the most anticipated titles this year, bringing to a close the trilogy that began with The Hunger Games and continued with Catching Fire. The Hunger Games was a captivating, compelling read — one of my favorite reads that year — and Catching Fire was close to it in quality; though different in pace and tone, it maintained a strong sense of character and character growth. So does Collins manage to recapture the fire in Mockingjay? To be honest, it’s a bit mixed.

In book one, the games are, well, the games (I’ll assume you already know what the Hunger Games are). In book two, the games broaden, though by the end we’re back in the literal games via the Quarter Quell. In Mockingjay, the “games” have broadened once more, becoming all-out war between the districts, led by District 13, and the Capitol. Katniss is the districts’ sometimes reluctant symbol of resistance, a symbol “employed” by District 13 via propaganda shoots, cameras that follow her around, scripted “rebel” lines, etc. The parallels between the preparation and execution of the war and Katniss’ earlier experiences with the games are drawn clearly for the reader (at times perhaps too much so — this was the first of the books where I felt the author was aiming clearly at a YA audience that might need a bit more help). Where she trained for the arena, she now trains as a soldier; where she was primped and made up for the audience of the games for a better show, she’s now primped and made up for the audience to better manipulate them into resisting. Collins does a good job making these parallels clear, but also showing Katniss’ reluctant acceptance of them while she’s also often repulsed by them. She also does a good job at the obvious — war is not in fact a game — and so, like its predecessors Mockingjay is filled with deaths, lots of them and some quite powerful. The war scenes we see will as well seem disturbingly familiar, many of them akin to terrorism or scenes from Iraq: the pods as IEDs, human shields, civilian casualties, etc.

Where Collins runs into some trouble is toward the end of the book when the “games” aspect becomes a bit too literal and the resistance has to run a gauntlet of killer “pods” in the city streets a la the creative death-dealing in the arenas. This feels a bit too contrived, a bit too much been-there-done-that, and trivializes the war aspect a little. The pods also don’t seem to make much logistical sense and seem somewhat random. Actually, the entire logistical aspect is the weakest part of the novel. The exterior world-building, beyond the narrow focus on the arenas, has always been thin, but one could ignore it in the earlier works. Here, though, with the plot being painted across all the districts and then in the entire city of the Capitol, we needed a clearer, more concrete, more full vision of how the world works. We get the war in a few scenes but mostly as snippets and it becomes a shock toward the end when the results are simply declared and then again when one realizes just how far it’s gone (vague, I know, but I don’t want to ruin plot).

The plot also has some pacing issues, some parts flying along and others stuttering through: the opening is a bit slow, as are some of the training scenes, and a scene involving the bombing of District 13 is both slow and strangely disconnected, and also calls up some basic questions of logistics. There are a few other plot points I had issues with, but they involve some spoilers so won’t go into them.

Character is a bit more tricky than plot in this one. Katniss’ character has always carried the reader through via her strength, her active role and sharply compelling voice. In Mockingjay, however, she’s much more passive as she’s forced, often reluctantly but eventually willingly, into being a propaganda tool by District 13’s President Coin. We get flashes of her vibrant will as she defies orders at various times, but mostly she’s reacting to people and events and within a relatively constrained perimeter. She’s also in much more confused waters than the “kill or be killed” and “stay alive” world of the arena. It isn’t quite clear whom to trust, politics is inherently shadowy, she’s both the target and tool of propaganda, it’s unclear to whom or to what principles to remain loyal to, it’s unclear as to what methods are justifiable: can one use the methods of one’s enemies without being the same as them?

This passivity and confusion is essential to the book. In fact, I’d say it’s the major point, but it makes for a read that is less satisfactory on the surface level. Mockingjay is a different kind of book, and a deeper book, but that costs the book a bit in that it loses that thrill-ride aspect of the first two. Personally, I like that she’s done something different, but some readers may bemoan the edge-of-the-seat, always-driving-forward, kick-ass-heroine aspects of the first two books.

Beyond Katniss, the other characters vary in depth and quality. Gale becomes a symbol of the “win at all costs” mentality, while Peeta, for complex reasons, argues for a ceasefire to spare lives. Gale suffers a bit from one-dimensionality, but Peeta is nicely complex and shaded, as is Katniss’ former mentor Haymitch. Prim, Katniss’ sister, isn’t on stage much but when she is she dominates in a quietly forceful and often poignant fashion.

This trilogy has always had a darker, more realistic bent. Too often we see the young, plucky hero (male or female) overcome all odds and defeat the bad guys/dark lord/dystopian leaders with only a single loss or two, required for emotional effect. Collins shows us how much that is childish wishful thinking. Kat doesn’t get to make all the choices here; she suffers more than a single loss or two, as do those around her; her decisions cause others pain; and the band of good guys she’s surrounded by (the fellowship, if you will) is a lot more grey than white. The muddiness of the world and war logistics is a major weakness in Mockingjay and means this conclusion isn’t as good as the first two books in some ways, but the other reasons the book doesn’t “satisfy” are essential to its realistic vision of people and the world as it is, which make Mockingjay a powerful and fitting conclusion. —Bill Capossere