Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins: A Review

Posted on | August 31, 2010 | 6 Comments

It’s been two days since I finished Mockingjay and I need to write a review—should have done already. The kitchen fan whirs above me, crickets drone, permeating the thick night air. The dog sighs. I sit here, as I have done for the last two hours, caressing the book’s shiny blue cover in the hope of coaxing out some inspiration. Over and over, I delete bad beginnings. Admittedly, I want to give up. There is so much one can say about this book, and yet I find myself frustratingly incompetent.

The thing is, I didn’t read Mockingjay the way I normally read books; I stuffed my face with it. And I’ve discovered that when this happens, I find it very difficult to know what to say afterward. How to write an intelligent review when I’ve just inhaled the book whole? It’s the difference, say, between savouring a good meal and being able then to wax poetic about it or say thank you, I have had an elegant sufficiency, and scarfing down something utterly addictive and feeling too sated afterward to do anything more than belch appreciatively. Not necessarily a bad thing, that latter reaction.

No, it’s not because I didn’t love the book that I’m uncertain how to proceed. More than likely it’s because I’m still exhausted from the experience. I devoured Mockingjay in a day because I found it impossible to stop reading. It is simply indisputable that Suzanne Collins has an admirable way with words and a wicked storytelling ability, and that, of all the three books in the trilogy, this is most noticeable in Mockingjay. This book was very well-written.

Thus I read till my eyes felt they were bleeding. It was after midnight when I finally closed the covers of the 400-page novel, and I could barely see when I shifted my gaze around the room, struggling to bring everything into focus, to re-situate myself on the couch in my home. I wish now that I’d sat down here and written my review right then. But I wanted to be able to present the thoughtful review this book deserves—considering its heavy themes of war and oppression, poverty and starvation—not one doused in adjectives and exclamation points and not much else.

Mockingjay continues the Hunger Games trilogy by aptly bringing the tenuous situation between the districts and the Capitol to a head. Outright war is now upon Panem, and our protagonist Katniss Everdeen finds herself not only a sort of mascot and even pawn for the rebelling districts but pressed further by her intensifying personal struggles: the loss of those close to her and of her district and way of life, fitting into her new-found leadership, establishing where her loyalties lie and who to trust, and finding her heart painfully divided between her best friend and the boy who’s loved her from the beginning. Much is demanded of Katniss, physically, mentally, and emotionally, as with other characters, and it’s all very palpable. You’d have to be made of stone not to feel in some way affected. In fact, I found myself experiencing surprisingly intense emotion while reading Mockingjay, stronger even than with the previous two books.

However, I would have liked to have seen Katniss really come into her own as the Mockingjay. I wanted to see more of that spunk and spirit that we saw in The Hunger Games, for her to further merit that role the districts bestow on her, and to be more purposeful so that her actions didn’t suggest she might be some accidental hero, sort of like Harry Potter. Katniss seemed otherwise mostly used as a pawn for district propaganda, and because of this I turned more to Peeta to find strength of character. He was by far my favourite person in all three books.

At the same time, it did not escape me that what Katniss was experiencing over the course of the trilogy became increasingly traumatic. It is natural and realistic that she be beaten down and weakened. She is only human, after all, and this struggle allows others characters, like Prim, much to my delight, to shine as well.

As in the previous two books, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, we are spared nothing in Mockingjay. The Capitol’s evils know no bounds and because of this there is always a sense of fear as to what you might encounter next. There is an interesting examination of personalities, philosophies, and motivations in this book in particular.

Districts are obliterated and many suffer or die, and how they die is shown us in brutally vivid yet not gratuitous ways. I’m aware that readers have been bothered by the violence in these books, particularly in Mockingjay, but I admit that I didn’t find it a deterrent. Collins writes powerfully but addresses the horrors of war tastefully, in my view, so that what you’re left with is rather a sense of tragedy and grief rather than nausea or revulsion. Very few characters we become close to are spared some sort of personal tragedy and it was not only once that I found my cheeks uncharacteristically wet with tears. If anything is to be taken away from these novels, it will be the study of what might have resonated with us in terms of reflections of our own society, and what, as Collins has said, we might do about those elements that are relevant to us.

In the midst of the ferocity of war and struggle to escape oppression as well as live through personal challenges, there is also humour in Mockingjay, mainly through Johanna, a victor who became allied with Katniss and Peeta in Catching Fire. Johanna is also a fine example of the liberating honesty in this book, which I really enjoyed and appreciated. Apart from the few characters who could not be trusted, most spoke their mind:

“Is that why you hate me?” I ask.

“Partly,” [Johanna] admits. “Jealousy is certainly involved. I also think you’re a little hard to swallow. With your tacky romantic drama and your defender-of-the-helpless act. Only it isn’t an act, which makes you more unbearable. Please feel free to take this personally.”

As with the Harry Potter novels and any other excellent series, it’s rare that anyone wants to come to the end. What next? we ask. And for God’s sake, when?? In fact, at around page 200 or so of Mockingjay, I began to grow genuinely fearful of finishing. I hadn’t experienced this with the previous books, probably because I knew I could open up the next right away. But turning the last page of Mockingjay was fraught with anxiety for me: I was afraid of being disappointed since I could not predict the end, but it also meant saying goodbye to the characters, the story, the world itself in which I’d been wholly immersed for several tense but enjoyable hours. Such a reading experience as the one The Hunger Games provided is rare, for me, and the exhilaration is not something I easily relinquish.

Fortunately, books can be read more than once, and I have a feeling that this series will be one I crack open again.

A huge thank you to Scholastic for generously sending me the Hunger Game trilogy, and to Suzanne Collins, whose writerly skill has allowed so many of us readers hours of unparalleled pleasure.

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins: A Review

Posted on | August 28, 2010 | 1 Comment

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. Scholastic Press, Sept. 1, 2009. pp. 400. Second book in Hunger Games trilogy

Because some you may still be reading this trilogy, I will attempt to write this without spoiling your experience, and thus will also not include a synopsis of Catching Fire here. It has been of utmost importance to me to not first read any reviews of Catching Fire or Mockingjay, the third book in this trilogy, and I have restrained myself from flipping through the pages of these striking hardcovers or even reading the jacket flaps. The best thing about this Hunger Games experience for me has been going in completely blind, because there are so many twists, so many unexpected turns, you would absolutely not want to know ahead of time what happens. These books are nothing short of exhilarating, and for you to go in knowing even the suggestion of what occurs will steal some of that sense of excitement from you.

Most people have said Catching Fire, the second in the celebrated Hunger Games trilogy, is even better than the first. Of course, this is what everyone wants, what makes an excellent trilogy—to have each book build on the previous in every way, especially concerning plot and character development.

Catching Fire is certainly captivating, even just to look at it. The cover is a metallic orange, silky to the touch. I couldn’t keep myself from constantly smoothing the cover, admiring it. And there are far better twists, excellent chapter endings, and the writing is even better than in the first book. It is not even close to predictable. I simply cannot complain and find myself instead constantly marvelling at Collins’s skill. It’s as though I’m still surprised by how good these books are, though I can’t for the life of me recall why I might have thought otherwise.

However, even though I totally devoured this book and found it utterly engrossing, I was much more tense reading The Hunger Games than Catching Fire. Catching Fire absolutely does have more power to it, more strength of character, more everything, really. The character development is excellently written. The repercussions of Katniss’s actions in both books are building as the Capitol strives to retain its status though revenge and fear mongering, and you realize more than ever that you can trust no one. The Capitol is exceedingly evil in this book, and there seems no limit to how far they will go. Indeed, the entire experience becomes more frightening. I clenched my teeth more reading this book, became more caught up in my reactionary feelings.

Yet I preferred the struggles and tension of the first book. Catching Fire moves more slowly than The Hunger Games, and so I felt something was lost, even while we gained and the need for more was certainly stoked.

Instead of focusing on loss, however, because that would be grossly unfair to both author and audience since this novel is far from suffering any real defect, I must point out that, like Katniss and her companions, this book shows growth and maturity both in the writing and the story itself. While The Hunger Games occurred mostly inside the arena, this book hones in on the growing tension and unrest outside, and we are exposed to more political workings, more speculative and therefore frightening (like Orwell or Margaret Atwood frightening) aspects of dystopian life, and also more details of the districts than in the first book. We are led to question our own societies, our own actions, our own potential should we find ourselves in this sort of situation. We further examine morals and ethics and the ultimate: choice.

Catching Fire takes us beyond The Hunger Games in that we are given a more broad look at what’s happening in post-apocalyptic North America, rather than focusing on one isolated example of the power of the Capitol. While The Hunger Games introduces us to Panem and its menacing centre, Catching Fire exposes the underbelly, revealing secrets and horrors alike. It’s the difference between starting a new job and then discovering the truth about it.

But there must be hope. Even as things appear more desperate, even as we’re pulled back and forth and torn in two and shocked and led to tears, even as we can’t decide how we want things to happen, there must be a glimmer of hope that whatever happens will be good, and it’s this that keeps up the suspense in this book.

Because of the twists and turns, it’s not only the Capitol you can’t trust but Collins herself. What’s to stop her from killing even the protagonist, for example? What’s to stop her from giving us an ending that leaves us horrified and catatonic with fear? What, indeed, is to stop her from not giving us the typical good against evil result? It’s certainly possible for stories to end on a shocking note (though it tends to happen more in film, I find). We have not been coddled in these books so far, and it’s anyone’s guess as to what may happen. Already, Collins has taken much, and the last page, like so many chapter ends before it, will inevitably leave you stunned, your mouth agape. So one dares to imagine, as do we all in the face of endless possibility, as do the people in the districts, that triumph may yet be realized, because it’s in our nature, we hope, to fight such possibilities rather than despair.

It was this, all this, that made me put down Catching Fire after midnight and immediately pick up Mockingjay. You will too.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins: A Review

Posted on | August 25, 2010 | 4 Comments

From Scholastic Canada:

Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives.

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death – televised for all of Panem to see.

Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Scholastic Press, 2008. HC, pp. 374.

August 24, 2010. It’s the release day for Mockingjay, book three of the hugely popular Hunger Games trilogy, a teen sensation that’s being equally devoured by adults, and this morning I receive not only this book but also its two preceding mates nestled in with it. By crazy fluke, I’ve been given the day off so I am home blogging when FedEx shows up. I rip that package open as though it’s me in the Games and it’s a parachuted gift.

And what a gift. Inside the box are three shiny, thick, matching hardcovers (I love sets!) plus another that my contact at Scholastic has unexpectedly, kindly, included for me. The bonus book is called Plain Kate, by Erin Bow, and from the sounds of it, my contact already knows me very well. I’ll review that book on this blog, too.

Although I’ve already started Kingsolver’s The Lacuna and Moore’s February, I want to start reading The Hunger Games right away but I’m able to steal only a  page here and there between finishing a blog post, taking the dog to the waterfront, picking up my husband from work, getting dinner, and so on. Finally, at 8:30 pm, when I know I can settle in and do nothing else, I get comfy on my couch in my office, set down my cup of raspberry leaf tea beside me, and cover myself in a blanket. With only the crickets and the fountain spout in our pond making sound outside my window, I immerse myself in my new book.

When I first heard of The Hunger Games, I was in Chapters: a bookseller recommended it to me. I’d only recently seen the movie Gamer, and it sounded somewhat suspiciously similar, plus the cover didn’t do anything for me. I left it behind. But the more I read or heard about how great the series is, the more I began to wonder if I hadn’t made a mistake. I don’t always fall for the hype, but I did very much enjoy Harry Potter and other series that were given a lot of press. I also like dystopian or speculative or apocalyptic (whatever you want to call it) fiction. So, just in case, I have stayed away from reading reviews or anything that might reveal the stories of this trilogy. Thus, I venture into the first book quite blind, knowing only that this trilogy is the biggest thing since Meyer’s Twilight and Stiefvater’s Wolves of Mercy Falls series (Shiver, Linger, and Forever [still come come]).

The first few pages put behind me, I am already hooked. Much like Dark Life, The Hunger Games pulls you into its dystopian world of Panem with ease and a completely convincing and rather frightening setting. At the same time, for some reason I keep thinking of the Wizard of Oz and Lord of the Flies and Margaret Atwood’s dystopian MaddAddam trilogy (Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, and a third to come) and Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, as though searching for an anchor, until finally the book commands my utmost attention and demands to be considered on its own. It doesn’t take long to get here. And in the end, it’s right: The Hunger Games is like nothing I’ve ever read.

When you read a book in almost a single sitting, it’s hard to know what to say afterward besides the fact that it was so compelling, so thrilling, so well-packed with tension and suspense that you can only gush about how fantastic it was. But I find The Hunger Games simultaneously horrifying (it truly got me thinking about how lucky I am to live before such times as could happen) and I also grow teary or angry or nail-bitingly afraid. There is a human element, a rawness to the characters in their need for comfort, in their strength and determination and desperation, that only the young who are forcefully pitted against each other can possess. Yet, like the audience of the Games, like reality show junkies or concerned family members, I find it impossible to stop “watching,” especially near the end when we reach a climax to the Games that rivals little else.

It’s true that I find Katniss Everdeen, our protagonist, somewhat frustrating, although she is admirably and splendidly and believably mature and strong and feisty and resourceful and intelligent. Perhaps it is for these reasons that she is also hopelessly dense in a particular area (I won’t tell which but since it’s a tad cliché you may guess). She fools no one, especially not us, with her somewhat overdone naivety, and I grow frustrated at her inability to see things as they are. I can understand perhaps why she doesn’t but I’m not certain that thickness would last as long in real life. I do not want to compare her to Bella Swan in this sense, but the thought does occur to me for a fleeting moment—then it’s gone. Perhaps we’re meant to feel this way, frustrated, because it does create tension; we wait for the time she wakes up and smells the…bread, so to speak. (Note: this book is nothing like Twilight and it is infinitely better written.) At any rate, the rest of the characters are well developed, many are likable, and the dialogue between them is natural and believable. And we find respite in Peeta, on whom I develop quite a crush. I’ll say no more about him here.

I also find much of the book fairly predictable, and there is one point at which I suddenly pierce the peace and, practically doubled-over, shriek, “I knew it, I knew it!!” But after I am right, then I am tricked, and this is one of the best things in this book: there are snares everywhere, waiting not only for game but for us, the readers. It’s as though Collins is saying, Think you’re so smart, do you? Guess again…. And this is reflected in the book as well, during the Games. You never know what the Capitol is going to spring on you, and because they’re so horridly evil, throughout the entire book you’re on the edge of your seat, heart pounding, wondering what might come next, right along with the remaining players. As with reality casts and their producers, nothing is what it seems, and you can’t trust anyone, especially not the Capitol.

This is the very type of book—now that you have a feel for the setting, for the characters peopling the districts, for their ways of life—that must have another following it, especially the way it ended.

Thus, without further ado and with another cup of tea (this time mint medley, for I overindulged at dinner; obviously I don’t live in District 12), I eagerly pick up Catching Fire.

Stay tuned.