Mockingjay (posted waaaay later than when I typed it...like by a month)

I don't know if I have any books that can even follow that up.
If you haven't read The Hunger Games, go read them. If you have, you know how good these books are, how well they're written, and how thought-provoking they are. Especially this last one.
For those of you who haven't read the series, they're about a place called Panem, which has 12 Districs in rings around a central city called the Capitol. In punishment for an uprising that took place many years ago among the Districts, there is a yearly event called the Hunger Games. Each year, two canidates are picked from each District, one boy and one girl, aged 12-18; they must participate in the Hunger Games, in which all the canidates are put in an outdoor arena and fight to the death. The entire event is televised for the viewing pleasure of the Capitol.

Spoilers, and I mean MAJOR details (highlight to read)


I thought she would kill off Gale. Or Peeta. Well, truthfully, I was expecting Gale to be killed off, because anyone could see she was always going to end up with Peeta. I never thought Prim was going to die - I thought that if she survived the District 12 destruction, and then the bombing of District 13, well, she must be okay, because she'd almost died twice already...and how would she ever be killed otehrwise? She was supposed to be safe.

And then there's Finnick. Finnick's death was a major blow - because Finnick was great. Really. Annie and him just really made it seem like things could be okay - that there could be someone you love, who you could get married to and have a life with, even with a horrible war going on...his death almost upset me more than Prim's did.

Other things: I liked that she didn't make the rebels perfect, because in reality, they never are. I like that, in fact, the rebel leader was someone who was just as bad as the previous dictator. The deaths of some were absolutely horrifying - Messala's in particular comes to mind.

The ending was a little weird, in a way. I know that because of what she did, Katniss was put in District 12 and didn't have a part in the politics anymore, but the idea that life just sort of went on is there, and that's odd. Though I supose the children didn't come around for a while, so that's why there's schools again and everything seems more normal. It's just hard to reconcile, you know? In real life it takes so long for damage to be undone...and what did they do with the people from the Capitol anyway? Did they have a Hunger Games? What was the compromise?