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Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) |  | Author: Suzanne Collins
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Category: Book
List Price: $17.99
Buy New: $8.00
as of 9/7/2010 13:43 EDT details
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Seller: KittyCorner
Rating:  reviews
Sales Rank: 4
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Pages: 400
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.4
ISBN: 0439023513
EAN: 9780439023511
ASIN: 0439023513
Publication Date: August 24, 2010 (New: Last 30 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she’s made it out of the bloody arena alive, she’s still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what’s worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss’s family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins’s groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Sputtering to a finish September 7, 2010
Richard Stoehr (Bremerton, WA USA)
I was fully prepared to rave about 'Mockingjay,' the last book of the Hunger Games series. I was ready to love it as much as I did the first two, and to channel that love into words of high praise. So imagine my surprise when I finished the book and was left with an unexpected feeling: disappointment.
I got a sense while reading the book that Suzanne Collins was making an attempt to create a big finish ending, which is another strange thing, because I felt like 'Mockingjay' was a smaller story than the first two books. It's less focused and more generalized. Much of the action happens "off-stage," and the main characters (Katniss Everdeen in particular) are far less interesting than they were in earlier installments. Where the first two books packed a big punch, this one is weak...perhaps staggering under its own weight.
Not that it's entirely a bad book. There are scenes in the early pages that hearken back to Collins' strongest points as a storyteller. The first quarter or so of the book reads much like 'Hunger Games' and 'Catching Fire' and almost captures that same excitement and razor's-edge suspense. Though it falters after that, there are later events and character developments that almost gave me hope again and kept me reading. I did finish the book, and the ending is...satisfactory. Not excellent, not everything it could have been, but it is a fair ending.
A story as good as the Hunger Games deserved far better than "fair." The strong start and hard-hitting nature of the early story didn't make it all the way through. In this third book, punches are pulled, opportunities are missed, endings are too easy, and the flame that burned so strongly at the beginning sputters and fails in the end.
The Hunger Games are over. All that's left is two excellent books and one fair one, and disappointment in what could have been.
 So pleased! September 7, 2010
Brianna
This is the best book out of the Hungar Game series! It was a great ending to the trilogy. Suzanne Collins does an amazing job making you feel like you are right there in the middle of the action. Loved this book!!!!
Marvelous Mockingjay September 7, 2010
Gecky Boz
This book gets a definite 5 out of 5 gnomes. Reading through this book there are so many quotable quotes and by the end I know I was pretty emotionally/brain drained.
I loved this book so much. How much you may ask? Well, the day it came out when I was at work I bought the eBook version from Barnes & Noble and started reading. Later on the way home I bought a hard cover copy from Borders with a 50% off coupon. All together I spent as much as the hardcover of the book would have been without a coupon so yes I feel it was indeed worth the money.
The book starts with Katniss standing in the rubble that was once her home. Katniss, as anyone who's read all the books would know, has been through a lot. She was a different person in this book but she also had been through two fights to the death and is now in the middle of an actual war, I think that would make anybody a loner. This means that throughout the book she seems more unstable than usual and probably has a severe case of what we today would call PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Personally I think I would be cranky too if I was in the situation Katniss was in as she says,
"Right now, they leave me alone because I'm classified as mentally disoriented--it says so right on my plastic medical bracelet--and everyone has to tolerate my ramblings. But that can't last forever. Neither can their patience with the Mockingjay issue."
Lots of spoilers after this,
It was great having to see the relationship between Peeta and Katniss reform after his hijacking. I think his being gone made her realize how much he had come to mean to her. They have their bumpy moments of course with the whole him being programmed to kill her part. This does lead to both sides knowing the complete truth now so their feelings can start anew and not have any lies for the cameras like there were before. Another great part is the Real or not Real game that they have to play with Peeta and that it becomes a recurring part of their relationship.
I was really sad that Cinna was dead, I kept expecting him to turn up somewhere but that was nothing compared to the death of first Finnick and then Prim. I was not expecting her to die at all and right in front of Katniss. It was heart wrenching especially since she was so much closer to Prim then she ever was with her mother and now she really has no family left besides a mother who won't even go back to 12 with her. It was very surprising when Buttercup showed up and was the one that finally made her break down/cry over the loss of her sister. Katniss and that cat are really very similar.
I believe that Gale never really had a chance with Katniss, there was just too much distrust between them. Then when it was his invention/bomb plan being used to kill her sister and all those other children there was really no way things could get better between them. I think the destruction of 12 made Gale vent his hatred out at the world while Katniss really internalized the loss.
I love how Snow is the one he connects everything together for her about 13 and their intentions and part in everything. District 13 aka President Coin sent her sister to the front lines even though she was 13 not 14 like the age limit Also how 13 sent her sister there as a medic at the age of 13 when you had to be 14 to be a soldier. How they started the initial war and reminding her that in this war the Capitol had no hovercraft left. So to use historical events 13 pretty much committed a small scale Hiroshima type attack.
It was great/fitting for Snow that he died by choking while laughing. It was sad but fitting that both her and Peeta were set/caught on fire it kind of flashed you back to the first games and then it's just made more real because they are actually burning.
The fact that they live in the victors village together and that many people came back to live there shows that 12 might just be the best place for Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch and the rest who can't really be themselves anywhere else.
I see the epilogue as very fitting, just two haunted people trying to move on with their lives.
 Glaringly violent, few redeeming qualities (NO SPOILERS) September 7, 2010
Jinkster (Washington, D.C.)
(NO SPOILERS) I loved Hunger Games and I liked Catching Fire...but Mockingjay is a surreal mix of horrific violence, drug-induced psychosis/disconnection, and political scenarios that are too convoluted to be thought-provoking or relevant.
To start, I can't imagine this is classified as a Young Adult novel - the mass death scenarios are bloody, cruel, and unrelenting. As a mother, I found some of the depictions of violence against children to be almost literally vomit-inducing (and one of my favorite shows is Dexter, so I'm not one to shy away from violence). It is, without a doubt, too emotionally and graphically intense for young readers. I almost wish I hadn't read some of the scenes myself - they will stay with me for a long time.
Second, the highly elaborate, gory and gratuitous deaths presented in the book can only be compared to one of the "Saw" franchise movies. Hmm, we haven't yet had the skin melt off of someone entirely, so let's do that. Next let's trigger a barbed wire death cage, or any of several varieties of airborne poison/acid/drugs. This all happens not in some game arena, mind you, but on residential city streets as an apparent method of national defense. Really? Alarmingly elaborate booby-traps as a defense strategy? I recognize this is science fiction, but even science fiction has limits on absurdity. These scenarios are absurd.
Relatedly, regarding the plot, it is clear that the author glossed over many points integral to the story-line, perhaps because her stronger suit is flowery monologues and dramatically elaborate deaths. A lot of what could be truly interesting about this novel (political intrigue, rescue, revolt, and national recovery) happens off-screen, while Katniss is recovering from one mental breakdown after another. Every time she surfaces from her mental fogs, the world has again shifted without description or real explanation. Frankly, it's lazy writing.
In sum, I'm genuinely displeased that I read this novel. I'm left with nothing but ugly images of violence and a hollow pit in my stomach, and I don't even have the satisfaction of a good plot resolution to make me feel better about it.
Very good, but not great. September 7, 2010
wambee
I was very excited for this last book to come out. I did like it, but I have to say that the very first one was my favorite. Hunger Games had me hooked throughout the whole book. The author was so creative w/ the plot and how Panem would really be. The second book, Catching Fire, was also a very good sequel. She picked up right where Hunger Games ended. My only critique of Mockingjay was that she sort of went overboard w/ the creative juices. Some of the things that took Katniss through this final stage of rebellion just seemed like a lot of fluff to get more pages in to the book. I would have liked for there to be a little more concentration of the characters relationships to eachother. But all in all, I did like it. It was worth the read.
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