Mockingjay

While one of the bloggers at Forever Young Adult has pretty much said everything I'd want to say about Mockingjay, I thought I would post about it here anyways.  It's not really fair to review a book unless you've read the whole thing, but you know what?  I don't really care.

As has been mentioned before, I have a love of The Hunger Games that may border slightly on obsession, and I was all a twitter to have Mockingjay come out.  I even dragged my ass to Meijer at 1:30 am release day to see if I could purchase a copy.  No such luck for me.  I did eventually get my hands on the coveted book and started reading.  But, something was amiss about Mockingjay.  It was just different.  Some other librarians had said that they thought it started slowly, and I do know that even people who love The Hunger Games said that started slowly for them, so I worked on sticking with it.

Then, last Sunday, I really got time to sit and dig my teeth into Mockingjay.  I was going along with it, and then I just started to come across passages that made me go, eh?  I started reading some of the stuff out loud to my boyfriend, and outright complaining to him about what was happening in the story.  Then, it happened, I broke down and looked up spoilers online to see what happened in the book.

NOTE here be spoilers!

WTF Gale!?  Ok, so the whole point of the series, or the start of it at least, is that Katniss wants to save her younger sister from going into the Hunger Games, she wants her sister to live.  And in the end, her sister dies because of Gale?  Yeah, thanks, but no.  I get it, everyone was Team Peeta, and I get it, war sucks blah blah blah.  But seriously?  Oh, and Finnick, the person who gets built up to have lots of sympathy, he dies?  Thanks for that one.

Now, I can deal with the death of favorite characters.  In Harry Potter, it's sort of the right thing that Fred dies in the end (even though I luvs me some Weasley twins!), and actually I cried for George.  But, the end fits.  Mockingjay just felt like, a different world, with different characters.  I missed the awesome BFF Gale who reminded me of my best guy friend growing up, and I am mad at Collins for taking that character away from me (or trying to, I've decided to ignore her ending and make up my own).

I'll always love The Hunger Games, and Catching Fire.  I'll always root for Katniss, and cry when Rue dies.  But, Mockingjay was a bit let down for me, and I'm sorry that an amazing series ended on such a sour note.  At least I got out before I couldn't make up my own fan fiction version in my head.