Mockingjay

Two words.... HATED IT!  And because I did, I don't care if I spoil it for anyone else.  So, here's your fair warning that if you don't want it spoiled you should quit reading.

Like right now...

Seriously, I warned you...

I don't want any hate mail because you kept reading and will curse me when you hear how it all ended before you read it...

If you're still with me you've either already read it or have no interest in reading it, right?

Okay, let me start by saying that I hated this final installment of an otherwise fabulous trilogy on two levels - both as a reader and as a writer.  We'll begin with the writer factor.  The whole thing was written in first person which means you only get to know what happens because Katniss (the main character) sees it herself or thinks it in her head.  When she's in the Hunger Games arena and under major action sequences, this is simply brilliant and the author, Suzanne Collins, did it so well that I forever sing her praises...  Well, until now.  So what happened with the last book?  Katniss is practically a secondary character - a pawn in a larger game - for most of the book.  So you don't actually get to know anything substantial.  Sure, she does stuff and sees stuff but none of it actually matters.  Then, at the end, when the game actually gets revealed and you find out that what she (and thus, you as the reader) thought were true about the other characters are not as they seemed, she shoots the wrong president.  And I had to read the ONE SENTENCE that tells about it twice to actually catch that something significant happened.  Then she gets locked into a cell under solitary confinement for months while she is on trial - which you never get to hear about or learn about at all.  Seriously, if that's the story then why didn't Katniss play a role where we could actually see the story?  Or, I get that you want a twist at the end but if we never hear anything about what happened while she was locked away waiting to die for her crime, why when that doesn't happen doesn't she get told what DID happen so we know!?!?  UGH, I could scream!

Which then brings us to the story itself that I hated from the reader level.  I never thought her and Peeta should be together.  I really liked Gail and wanted them to end up together.  And when Peeta came back brainwashed thinking she was the bad guy after he gets rescued from his captors and tries repeatedly to kill her, I was convinced she would end up with Gail.  So what the FUCK?  It was completely anti-climactic how Peeta gets "cured" of the brainwashing and then Gail may or may not have been responsible for the bomb that killed Katniss' sister which also never gets resolved.  AND, we never get to find out for sure what happens to Gail - if he didn't get to be with Katniss who he loved, at least tell us that he is happy elsewhere.  Is that too much to ask?  And after everything is said and done, this amazing girl who was partly responsible for a revolution and bringing down an oppressive government.... votes to keep perpetuating the violence she fought against?  Really?  And becomes, in the end, an emotional vegetable who lets life happen around her?  WITH PEETA?  UGH...

Seriously I hated the way it ended and wish I had never read past the initial book which stood alone quite well, thank you very much.  Without the second book we wouldn't have seen her and Gail's relationship and really there was no need to take it past the first Hunger Games that she survived.  Who needs a revolution... just go home and tell the tale you lived to tell.  It probably was initially written as a single book and some agent somewhere told her "hey, this would be great if we expanded the story line and did a trilogy"...   Wouldn't that be a bite in the ass if somehow it was the author revolting herself against such a suggestion?  If you haven't read any of them, just read the first and call it quits.  Nothing works out in the end and you'll just be mad...