2012 Book 6: Mockingjay

I finally wrapped up The Hunger Games trilogy. I stayed up until midnight to finish Mockingjay {this was tough since I had to get up to feed Jack shortly after going to sleep... such is life with an infant}.

Overall I really enjoyed the trilogy. My first impressions are that The Hunger Games was my favorite book of the three. Mockingjay was a bit intense and I feel like the movie version of this book will be incredibly gory... not sure that I will be able to watch it.

I was a bit disappointed in the deaths of certain characters {don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't read the trilogy yet}, but believe they were necessary to the plot. Also I wish that the characters of Coin and Boggs were more developed. I kind of felt like I was just thrown into book 3 without much set up. Since I had waited almost a month between reading Catching Fire and Mockingjay, there were a few times that my tired mommy brain couldn't figure out what was going on from the previous storyline.

I really liked the ending and believed that Katness chose the right boy for her {again, I don't want to spoil it}.

Excerpts from the book: 

I begin to fully understand the lengths to which people have gone to protect me. What I mean to the rebels. My ongoing struggle against the Capitol, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not been undertaken alone. I have had thousands upon thousands of people from the districts at my side. I was their Mockingjay long before I accepted the role.

 

I’m sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it’s mostly for their own good.

“That’s why I killed Cato…and he killed Thresh…and he killed Clove…and she tried to kill me. It just goes around and around, and who wins? Not us. Not the districts. Always the Capitol. But I’m tired of being a piece in their Games.”

 

Am I really that cold and calculating? Gale didn’t say, “Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up,” or even “whoever she can’t live without.” Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the person who I think I “can’t survive without.”

What I need to survive is not -----'s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only ----- can give me that.