MOCKINGJAY by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay is a 2010 young-adult science fiction novel by Suzanne Collins, and the final book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Here, Katniss has become the face of the rebellion’s propaganda campaign.

Mockingjay is often grimmer than the previous books, and Collins makes a couple of somewhat bold plot decisions (for the YA genre). However, while Collins knows how to keep the reader turning the pages, the story itself often lacks focus. Much of the book features Katniss involved in events of only peripheral importance, and a number of important story elements are not well developed, even if they are resolved satisfactorily.

In Mockingjay, Collins attempts to draw a contrast between Gale’s embrace of no-holds-barred warfare and Katniss’s reservations. Yet her attitude is inconsistent with her actions in all three books, and it rings distinctly false.

In the context of street warfare, the Capitol’s Games-style booby traps feel silly and impractical. And the book’s ending, in addition to fizzling abruptly, feels somewhat contrived and arbitrary. A very deliberate suspension of belief is required in a number of places.

Collins finally gives Katniss some substantial emotional reflection and explores just how damaged she is. However, this self-examination is focused on what Katniss has lost and almost completely ignores what she has done, which may make the reader feel that Katniss has not learned anything (especially the messages Collins seems to be trying to present to the reader) nor evolved substantially as a character. But Collins lowered the bar for herself in this regard in the previous books, and it’s better than nothing.

In the end, Mockingjay is an under-developed but reasonably entertaining and generally satisfying conclusion to the series, held back by the telling rather than the story.

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CATCHING FIRE by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire is a 2009 young-adult science fiction novel by Suzanne Collins, and the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. Here, the events of the first novel have stirred up unrest in the Districts, and the totalitarian Capitol threatens nearly everyone Katniss knows with death.

The Hunger Games was a page-turning affair; Catching Fire is too, mostly. Collins has a lot of creative ideas here, many of which work well, especially in the middle third of the book. It’s notably impressive that she can keep a second Hunger Games event reasonably fresh, although its abbreviated length certainly helps.

And yet here also Katniss spends page after page mentally whining, absorbed in her own problems, feeling sorry about her situation (that she’s moping about her loved ones’ fates rather than her own doesn’t make it less tiresome). Katniss is also painfully slow on the uptake throughout the book, and is often a hindrance to other people who are trying to get things accomplished. For numerous reasons, she just isn’t as sympathetic here as she was in the first book.

The real star of Catching Fire is the supporting cast. Whereas Katniss is usually content to take a blunt-instrument approach to her plight, many of the other characters are crafty, creative, and noble, and the reader roots for them. It’s too bad the first-person narrative restricts the book to Katniss’s perspective, because a great deal of what they’re up to is quite a bit more interesting than much of what Katniss has going on.

Collins’ writing feels somewhat less solid here than in the first book. The story itself is fine, but Collins at times seems more interested in setting up the third book than telling this book’s story. Much of the key action in the book is given in summary. The ending is a particularly glaring example, where the reader is given a glossed-over page of twists and revelations without even a proper scene. Additionally, the love triangle featuring two upstanding, devoted young men who don’t care how annoying the girl can be is boilerplate for female-fronted young-adult fiction.

For all the setup of the first book, Collins still doesn’t have anything interesting to say on any of her issues. She still hammers the totalitarian-government-is-bad point, but that government and its leader are never more than one-dimensional villains. Collins again ignores the moral issues of the Hunger Games; indeed, Katniss, who hopes that somebody else kills the people she likes so she won’t have to, is nearly all hardened killer here. (The seeds are here to make a point about fighting evil with evil, but Collins doesn’t seem the slightest bit inclined in that direction.)

Catching Fire is a page-turner. But because of its flaws, it feels shallow, and a page-turner is about all it is. Ultimately, that’s just enough to make it worthwhile.

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THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games is a 2008 young-adult science fiction novel by Suzanne Collins, and the first in a trilogy. In a post-apocalyptic dystopian totalitarian state, children are selected to fight to the death on live television.

This is hardly an original idea; it’s most strongly reminiscent of Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale and, to a lesser extent, Stephen King’s The Long Walk and The Running Man (the movie more so than the novella). Yet Collins manages to keep the setting and the games themselves reasonably fresh. And, after something of a slow start, the book becomes an entertaining, page-turning affair.

Like far too many recent young-adult novels, The Hunger Games is written in the first-person present tense. I don’t know if this is an attempt to engage teens perceived to have short attention spans or what, but it’s obnoxious, and it provides no benefit over conventional past tense (one eventually gets used to it, fortunately).  

Aside from this, Collins’ writing is solid (although the copy editing on this book is rather poor – not her fault). Katniss is a satisfactorily sympathetic character: she’s impulsive but self-sacrificing, and clever, resourceful, and self-sufficient without being deal-breakingly sassy or annoying. The book has a couple of convenient plot coincidences, but nothing unforgivable.

As young-adult books go, The Hunger Games might be as dark and violent as they come. And the novel stumbles here because it doesn’t seem to have much to say about its subject matter (beyond “the government making kids kill each other is bad”). The protagonist is forced to kill other children to survive (most of them, like her, are in this situation through no fault of their own) – you would think that this scenario would lend itself to some psychological self-exploration, but Collins punts on this issue, as Katniss, with only superficial reflection, is implausibly businesslike on the subject – she never thinks much about the people she’s killed, even during her many quiet times. This suggests a disturbing degree of amorality. It’s as though all these kids get dumped into the arena already in full-on Lord of the Flies mode. Collins herself seems much more interested in 1984-style criticism of totalitarian government, which is the subject she’s set herself up to address in the sequel. All of this may put off certain readers, and not unreasonably. In short, Collins’ treatment of moral issues is a legitimate concern, and a missed opportunity – her scenario, unlike, say, The Running Man, doesn’t lend itself well to action movie-style morality.

On the whole, The Hunger Games, while hardly a perfect book, is suspenseful and entertaining, which always overcomes a lot of flaws. It’s recommended to readers who like this sort of thing – if you can acknowledge the moral issues.  

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