Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Okay, okay, I know you'll read lots of reviews for this book.  And I wish I could give you the big spoiler review of it, but I will do my best not to do that.

Suzanne Collins did it again!  A triumph in a novel that breaks your heart when you least expect it to but has you cheering Katniss to victory.

Here's the quick summary for the third and FINAL (yes I mean that, although is it odd to say I want more?)  book of The Hunger Games.

Summary from Goodreads.com

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding. 

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans -- except Katniss. 

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay -- no matter what the personal cost. 

Everything from the beginning gets your head spinning in this book.  Everything about which way Katniss should go and who she should trust, or even if she can trust herself.  It's exactly the same situation as the first two books in the way that Suzanne Collins makes your jaw drop to the floor at moments where you want to cry, but you'll sog up the pages so you don't or your vision gets blurry so you hurry and set it down for a bit to compose yourself.  I felt the same way in the first two books and I got that in this final one as well.

I was thinking to myself about the covers once I began reading Mockingjay.  The first cover is colored with black, the second with red, and now the third with blue.  Now, I know that no author (unless really invited to have a say in it) has no say in the covers at all.  Zip, zilch, nada.  That's the usual case.  Usually the author will hate it or love it.  I'm guessing that since the beginning our amazing author here, has had many, and I mean, many says in what goes into her covers or they wouldn't all be the way they are.  Not in any way like the book which isn't that way once you get yourself immersed into whatever it is going on.  The games, the rebellion, the love triangle between Peeta and Gale.  But when I was thinking about the covers, I realized, they must all go with each book somehow.  The Hunger Games, I believe has the color black on it because of the death that surrounds the games themselves and the darkness of the world of Panem.  Catching Fire is red, for obvious reasons but I'll list it anyway, because of the rebellion that Katniss sparks and the flame catches on in that story.  In Mockingjay, I believe the blue is meant for a sign of freedom from the Capitol's icky, designer claws.  These are just hunches, but I really think that there is a symbolism in the covers themselves.  I could review each of them, but I think this review would take forever to read if I bored you all with what I thought they each were about in detail.

The covers are magnificent, but not as catching as the characters themselves.  We learn so much more about Peeta, Gale, and Katniss in this story and are reminded of things in the past stories.  Everything clicks together in this story.  But even though everything clicks, doesn't mean that the characters do.  I mean, they do in this story.  I love them all.  I wish, personally, to actually meet them all, but the way I imagine them in my head is different from the author's idea of them and even the ideas of everyone who reads these characters is different.  That's what makes these characters so incredibly special.  It is like Suzanne wrote them all for us individually.  There are the Team Peeta's and the Team Gale's.  There are the ones who don't care, but only hope that our own world doesn't fall into the glum place of Panem in the future.  And for me, as long as those words on those pages are still around, I can go back into that dreary world and live with Katniss.  Hunt with Gale.  Fall for Peeta.  Survive the games.

I don't know how Suzanne Collins does it with writing in present tense.  I've tried it myself, and failed.  I always fall back into past tense.  That is my most favorite "technical" writing I skill I wish I could have.  It is hard to write it all as if it were happening now.  But that's what makes these books so real to us.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

For Mockingjay, and I have read some other reviews on this, but I agree with some that the epilogue at the end of the story seemed out of place.  But really, I like how it did sum up everything and show really how the story ended.  Some epilogues don't need to be.  Some do.  This one, I'm indifferent on because of that.  It needs to be, but it doesn't need to be.

I could go on and on and on, but then I'd spoil the story for you!  No way will I do that.  That would be evil of me to do.  Maybe in the future one of us here on the Book Bundle will do just that. A nice, everything spoiled review of this wonderful, amazing end book to one of the most anticipated trilogies in the past three years.

I hope you will all join me in giving Suzanne Collins a standing ovation for her characters, her story, and her imagination.  This creation is a gift and almost, it seems, a warning to us all.

So, without further comment on this story....

for now anyway...

"May the odds ever be in your favor!"