Book #7 of 2025: Mockingjay
Before I get to the review, turns out I was behind the times. There is indeed a book #4 of this series (a prequel: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes), and in March of this year book #5 is coming out (another prequel: Sunrise on the Reaping). Guess I had good timing in rereading the trilogy series!
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.
Quick synopsis: It's time for the final battle in the rebels vs Capitol war for control of what seems to be the whole world (the rest of humanity is gone, all that's left is this little bit of former-US). The whole book takes place during the last of the war.
Brief opinion: Much better than book 2, though I did consider DNFing it a couple times when the romance/love triangle got to be too much.
Plot: Katniss agrees to join with the rebels, but most of the time they use her for PR. "War is messy" could be the theme here. Lots of people die (named characters and unnamed ones). Lots of suffering. Lots of ground battles, weapons and tactic planning, lots of air strikes.
Peeta, while a POW, was tortured badly and programmed to hate Katniss (through means I didn't believe, but whatever, it worked for the story to have him mentally messed up).
Near the end Katniss leads a small ground force fighting through the city to try to assassinate President Snow. Many bad things happen, most of the people with her die.
Eventually thing get even worse, Katniss's sister is dead by the rebel's plans, using tactics Gale came up with (which at least ends the love triangle).
Katniss is supposed to be the one who executes President Snow, but in the last seconds she kills the leader of the rebels instead.
In the end, she and Peeta are together and have two children, though you really can't call it a "happily ever after". Both have believable PTSD and such from the war and their time in the Games.
Writing/editing: Mostly good. This line amused me and made me crave chocolate-covered strawberries:
Her teeth were crooked and there's a strawberry birthmark over one of her chocolate brown eyes.
What I Liked/What I Didn’t Like: I liked this book more than book 2, though I didn't love it or even enjoy it a lot of the time. There was less love triangle and "How can I live without him?????" stuff, which was a big improvement.
Even by the end of the third book, still I didn't like Katniss as a character.
Is it too much to wish for Haymitch's alcoholism to be handled more realistically? Once more they made an alcoholic who drank himself to blacking out every day for decades go cold turkey. That would have killed him.
I liked that the ending was realistic: Two broken people doing the best they can to live the rest of their life.
Rating: 1-Hated / 2-Disliked / 3-Okay / 4-Liked / 5-Loved: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Okay.
I'm going to continue on and read The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes next. It's set much earlier, when President Snow was young and acted as a mentor for the games.