A Mocking Review

I recently finished the book Mockingjay, and with it The Hunger Games trilogy. Though I did enjoy the book, it left me with an odd feeling about the series overall. I've read several criticisms of the first book, all saying the premise and plot lift heavily from other sources. And yet, now that I've read the whole trilogy, I definitely feel like that first book was the best of the three.

What to make of that? Is "someone else's idea" the best part of The Hunger Games? Or can author Suzanne Collins be credited for a putting a good new spin on things, even though she didn't conclude her story as well as it began? (How many countless authors have fallen victim to that?)

I compared book two, Catching Fire, to The Empire Strikes Back, in that it went out on a big "middle chapter" cliffhanger. In other ways, I could compare Mockingjay to Return of the Jedi. The book travels a predictable path, in pursuit of a predictable conclusion. The double-edged sword of setting up specific story expectations over a series is that you must then write what you've telegraphed.

Perhaps sensing this issue, Collins pulls up in the last 30 pages and has an entirely different and unexpected ending to her book. And this too is a double-edged sword. It pulls the story off the rails, but isn't really earned. It's not an illogical ending, just an out-of-the-blue one. And it's capped with one more lift from existing work; the book has an epilogue that felt very reminiscent of Harry Potter to me.

All that sounds like I'm pretty down on the book, but that's not really the case. The characterizations remain strong here as they've been all along. A fair amount of what makes the story predictable is that the characters are all so well drawn that you easily anticipate what they'll do next as the plot unfolds. Collins' writing style remains fast-paced and compelling, pulling you through the story swiftly.

All told, I'd rate the book a B. So, while the series certainly doesn't end as strongly as it began, the final volume is definitely at a high enough level that I can recommend the series overall.

We'll see how it all comes together on film, when the first movie adaptation opens next March.