The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset Hardcover – Box set, August 24, 2010

Before reading The Hunger Games trilogy, I had more than a few people tell me the first two books were good, but the last one was lacking. I couldn't disagree more. The story is harsh, gruesome, and bleak. It had to be. It's a first person account of an individual who has survived two Hunger Games and plays a major role in a revolution. Of course it's going to be brutal. Had the story drawn to a close with Katniss standing majestically with trumpets blaring and flags waving, it would have been completely unrealistic.

I also heard a few people express disappointment in the conclusion of the Katniss/Peeta storyline. I've read people's reviews taking issue with how Katniss and Peeta are represented at the end of Mockingjay, asking "Where's the passion?" Passion? Are they insane? First of all, the story is told in first person by a character who is admittedly not at all comfortable being demonstrative and doesn't respond well to those who are. There was never going to be a hearts/candy/flowers declaration happening here. Peeta has a borderline obssessive love for Katniss throughout most of the trilogy. The way I read the story, by the end of the first Hunger Games, she returns the feeling. Though hesitant to think why she does the things she does, or to state it aloud, she expresses it in so many different ways throughout the remainder of the trilogy, there really is no doubt. Despite the fact that she is suffering major PTSD, she agrees to take on the stress of being the symbol of revolution and take a front line role to bring him back. Regardless of the amount of trauma they both endure, they still eventually turn back to each other. Gale was a strong character, but he had not gone through what Katniss did in the arena and would never have been able to understand that part of her. The time she spends clinging to him and avoiding Peeta is essentially an attempt to return to the person she was before the games (which was never going to happen). Peeta was the walking, living, breathing reminder of the trauma endured. I thought it telling that Peeta returned to Region 12. Like Gale, he could have gone anywhere when it was all over, yet he went where Katniss was. Really, Katniss, Peeta and Haymitch needed each other to become human again (or as human as they were ever going to be). Katniss reminded me of uncles I had who, when they returned from war, sat in a darkened room, staring at a wall day after day for over a year before they could handle being amongst the living again.

I'll admit part of me would have liked President Snow's demise to be more than it was. Considering the amount of suffering he caused, part of me is bloodthirsty enough to have wanted him to suffer a great deal more. There are also characters I would have liked to survive (Finnick, Cinna, and Prim to name a few), but their deaths helped to illustrate the randomness and unfairness of death in wartime.

There are parts of this story we'll never get to see because it is told from Katniss' point of view. We see only what she sees and know only what she thinks is going on. I, for one, would be interested in knowing more about events of the story from Peeta and/or Haymitch's point of view. Peeta's fight back from his memory hijacking would be an intriguing read.

Ultimately, I found this book engaging, infuriating, exhausting, and funny all at the same time. To have had Katniss serene and sweetly declaring life to be sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows would have been absurd. She is with a husband (partner?) whom she loves and is utterly devoted to. She has two children she loves, but is worried what they will think when they know the role their parents played in the past. She and Peeta are happy, but remain somewhat haunted which is perfectly realistic for what the characters have gone through.

[Spoilers for the previous books. If you haven’t read “The Hunger Games” or “Catching Fire” you might want to before reading this review.]

This book concludes “The Hunger Games” trilogy. A rebellion has been stoked in Panem, and its architects need Katniss Everdeen to keep the fires burning. But there are two problems. Problem one is that she’s healing, disoriented, and—in a manner of speaking—mourning Peeta (who is alive but in the hands of the Capitol.) The second problem is that they want her as a celebrity spokesmodel, a position at which she stinks. Once she gets her feet under her, she has other ideas, ideas that will put the Mockingjay—beloved symbol of the rebellion—in mortal peril. The reluctant heroine who refuses to play on the terms of others is a recurring theme, but it unfolds on a much different field.

Where “Catching Fire” repeated and expanded upon the “gladiatorial combat and a love triangle” theme of the first book, here the games aren’t in the arena but in rebel strongholds in the Districts and in the Capitol, itself. While the love triangle angle seems moot at the book’s beginning, it does continue to play out in an intriguingly twisted fashion. The gladiatorial combat is replaced by actual war, but the Gamemakers are still around to put their diabolical stamp on the proceedings.

As an ending, “Mockingjay” is satisfying in that it ties up loose ends and leaves the story at a clear conclusion. Readers will have varying feelings about how these loose ends were resolved, the pacing of those resolutions, and the emotional tone with which one is left. (War story happy endings only get so happy.) When I read “Mockingjay” I found it a tad less enjoyable than the other books, but for reasons that I’ll admit are hard to explain. Collins presents a bitter-sweet, realist conclusion, but in the shell-shocked miasma in which the reader is left, it’s hard to tell if one is satisfied or just done. I suppose the fact that it triggers an emotional response at all makes it a good ending.

I’d recommend this book, and the rest of the trilogy as well.