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Sep
09
On the Mediocrity of MOCKINGJAY
2010 at 5am Posted by Rebecca Joines Schinsky
Mockingjay is the much-anticipated final installment of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy. If you haven’t read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, much of this post will be lost on you, and if you’ve read those but not Mockingjay, be forewarned: this bad boy is spoilerific.
Also: we at the Bookrageous Podcast would love to hear your thoughts about this book! Call us at (347)855-READ and leave a message with your reaction.
Disclaimers:
While I liked the first two books (the first one more than the second), I can hardly call myself a rabid fan. I read the books, and I enjoyed them, but I have never been overly invested in or emotionally attached to the characters. I wanted to know how it would end, but I wasn’t about to stand in line to buy it at midnight. Just thought you should know where I stand.
ALSO
It’s been about two weeks since I finished Mockingjay, but I was so utterly disgusted by it (really—I threw it at the wall with the declaration that it was “really fucking awful”) that I haven’t been able to force myself into writing about it. So, if you’re here because you want to share in the gushing about how picture-perfect it all was…well, honey…you’re in the wrong place.
The Rant
Where to begin? I mean, really. I straight-up hated most of this book. And I’m not kidding. My first margin note occurred on page 12, and it says, “Wow, heavy on the angst.”
If only I had known! I would have stopped there.
The best word that I’ve found to describe the general tone (and therefore, the general problem) with Mockingjay is OVERWROUGHT. Katniss is so angsty and self-loathing. Peeta is so tortured (literally) and creepy and hot-and-cold. Gale is all “I’m a tough, violent rebel, and I just want to blow things up.”
And it’s all just too fucking much!
(I promised several people a review with prolific use of the F word, and I’m not going to back down now.)
So, Katniss: I used to think of her as the feminist’s answer to Bella Swan. She was tough and independent, and she refused to rely on a boy for her identity or strength. I kind of loved it that she used Peeta in the first book, knowing that the audience would be attached to what they perceived as a love connection. Her confusion in Catching Fire was mildly interesting, but by the time Mockingjay was over, she was looking even wimpier and more annoying than Meyer’s character, and if you know me, then you know that is saying something.
As for the love triangle: I’ve always thought it felt like the torn-between-two-boys thing was an afterthought, as though Scholastic realized how much action the Jacob vs. Edward bit in Twilight got and decided they should nudge Collins into adding that element to her books. I always hoped Collins would let the tension play out and take Katniss into the future on her own. I mean, really. How many of us actually end up with the people we had crushes on when we were sixteen? Sure, they’ve all been through traumatic experiences together, but still. It gets old really fast.
And while I’m talking about that, I should also address the way that Katniss plays on the boys’ pain and weakness and then decides that THE ONLY WAY TO COMFORT THEM IS TO KISS THEM! Gale is smart enough to know what she’s doing and call her out on it, but PUH-LEEZ. I also found it really disturbing that Katniss’s attraction to and love for Peeta and Gale was so defined by suffering, and COME ON, is there anything more fucked up and narcissistic than the idea that your kisses are powerful enough to heal the kind of wounds caused by war and torture?
Beth Fish Reads wrote a fabulous response to this issue (and the larger problems with the book) that made me want to shout amen.
And let’s talk about the violence and torture, shall we? I’ve read several articles criticizing the level and extent of violence in Mockingjay recently, and while I think it’s important for us to have this conversation (about the depiction of violence in young adult books in general), I don’t quite understand why this is only coming up now. Sure, torture is a hot-button issue, but why are we supposed to be more alarmed by it than by the foundational concept of the series, which is, HELLO, children killing other children FOR THE AMUSEMENT OF THE RULING CLASS? Perhaps the violence in Mockingjayy strikes closer to home because it’s of the sort we can reasonably expect to hear about in the news (whereas the whole elimination game thing is not so much), and that hits too close for comfort. If Katniss, Peeta, and Gale were growing up in the contemporary U.S., they’d almost be of age to enlist in the military, and really, there’s not much that happens in Mockingjay that couldn’t happen to a young man or woman who went off to the war we’re fighting now.
It ain’t pretty, but it’s the truth.
While we’re on the subject of things that aren’t pretty, let’s discuss the writing. It seems to me that Mockingjay was written for an entirely different audience than The Hunger Games and Catching Fire were. The first two books are all ACTION! DANGER! NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES! GO GO GO! There is pacing and excitement and a reason to keep turning the pages….and….well…..the same cannot be said for Mockingjay. Where The Hunger Games and Catching Fire are the kinds of books that even reluctant readers can dive into and get excited about, Mockingjay is much more about politics and strategy and the mechanisms of war and rebellion, and those are the kinds of things that older, more worldly readers appreciate.
Or, they would be if the writing were any good.
As I said earlier, “overwrought” is the descriptor I keep coming back to. Additionally, the book has major pacing issues, and Collins just sort of drops major revelations into our laps nonchalantly. Too nonchalantly. Ti touches on this in her review at Book Chatter also.
And all of this brings me to the ending. Call me naive, but I always harbored hope that the series would end with Katniss by herself, starting to sort things out and make a life of her own, away from other people’s pressures and expectations. I knew Collins would have to resolve the love triangle, but I really, really hoped the resolution would be that Katniss didn’t choose either boy. Or, if she absolutely had to, that she would choose Gale. So when she ended up marrying Peeta and having babies even though she didn’t really want to, and the whole thing ended with her watching their children frolicking in a field that was once a battleground-slash-burial ground, I wanted to puke.
It’s just too sappy and too easy and too calculated to please the readers that are attached to Peeta and his faux-sweetness, and it really did make me throw the book against the wall. These are not sweet books, and Collins just completely caved in and wrote a sweet ending, and it is really, really weak. I mean, sure, we all expected a sweet ending to the Harry Potter books, and we got it, and it worked, but in this case, it is just WRONG! ALL WRONG!
And this concludes my rant about Mockingjay. I have many more things to say, but this will suffice, and I have to save some of it for the next Bookrageous podcast recording!
Have you read it? What did you think?
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2010 Rebecca Schinsky
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I can see where you’re coming from, but though I had problems with it too, I enjoyed it for the most part. It definitely could have been a lot more than it was.
Lenore´s last [type] ..BBAW is coming upand I am on award shortlists!
Grab a copy of Paolo Bacigalupi’s YA novel “Ship Breaker” and all will be right with the world.
There needs to be so much more buzz about this awesome book, although his recent Hugo Award win (a joint winner alongside China Mieville) for the equally awesome “The Windup Girl” will probably help.
You make some excellent points, particularly about the pacing. I felt like we spent all this time exploring the preparations for the revolution and then when the revolution and the aftermath came we were done in 2.5 chapters. I thought the opportunity was completly missed to explore some excellent story in the aftermath (Prim/Finnick’s deaths, Katniss going back to 12, Gale being in government, etc, etc, etc). I know the book couldn’t be too long but still I think it could have been more evenly paced. I’ve spoken to a couple of people about this and we’ve come to the conclusion that it seems that Collins almost wrote this book as a screenplay. She’s been working on the Hunger Games adaptation and perhaps she wanted to make it easier in the end or perhaps she couldn’t switch back and forth between the two easily I don’t know. Just seems like such a shift in structure from the first two books.
Though I’m a girl who loved Katniss’ connection with Peeta I have to say I was quite surprised Collins chose to partner her up in the end. I thought the daring and reasonable thing would have been for her to be alone. I also though it would have been better if one of the two boys were the one to be killed as opposed to Prim or Finnick.
MIchelle´s last [type] ..Nina Malkin – Swoon
It WAS fucking awful. Every aspect of it caused me to roll my eyes. Forget the hype. Even without the hype it sucked. There just didn’t seem to be any clear direction. Collins would head down one path, and then switch gears for no apparent reason other than to shock the reader.
And the ending was like something out of Carrie. You know, that last seen when everything is all hunky dory and then BAM, Sissy Spacek’s hand shoots out of the grave. The kids frolicking… I kept waiting for a bomb to go off. Thinking that there HAD to be a point to this crappy ending. Nope.
Ti´s last [type] ..Review- Fever Dream
I spelled scene wrong. It’s early here
Ti´s last [type] ..Review- Fever Dream
Amen Rebecca. Amen. You’ve captured it all perfectly, and I couldn’t have said it better myself. The ending to me ruined the whole thing – I could have forgiven some of the angst and annoyance if that epilogue wasn’t there. Maybe.
Amy´s last [type] ..Review- Dark Song by Gail Giles and Dust by Joan Frances Turner
Brava! I loved Hunger Games and thought Catching Fire was mediocre at best. Like you, I was looking forward to seeing how it all wrapped up and I was rather disappointed. I agree with your assessment completely.
On second, third and fourth thought I have decided that everything wrong about MJ boils down to an editing issue. We’ve all seen it happen: exciting new author suddenly hits the big time and either (1) editors get scared to change anything in the manuscript lest they jinx things or (2) author decides she don’t need no stinkin editor.
A stronger developmental editor would have picked up on the inconsistencies in the characters’ personalities, the vast amount of action that happens off the page, the change in perspective, and the end that could be read as sappy or almost horrifying in its message. Pretty much everything you wrote about here and I wrote about earlier would have been corrected with strong editorial guidance.
I’m not sure that Collins wrote MJ with a screenplay in mind–a pretty boring movie if we have to watch Katniss in a drug-induced stupor most of the time.
Beth F´s last [type] ..Review- Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by BethFishReads, cybils. cybils said: RT @BethFishReads: Don't miss @bookladysblog 's take on Mockingjay: http://tinyurl.com/24b4mkf [...]
My biggest (of many) problems was that I didn’t find the ending sweet or ANYTHING AT ALL. She doesn’t even really choose Peeta — he just kind of ends up in District 12 and is the only person available for Katniss so she just kind of marries him and kind of agrees to have kids? What kind of ending is that for ANY of them?
And I wholly agree with the nonchalant dropping of revelations. Multiple times I had to go back and reread because I hadn’t fully caught the cataclysmic events that had just transpired without any explanation.
Ugh. I couldn’t even review this one.
Rebekah´s last [type] ..I Did it!!! – An Update on My Reading Rivalry with President Bush
My biggest beef, as discussed over at Beth Fish Reads, was the fact that so much happened off the page — and we’re talking the most crucial stuff. I got pretty tired of Katniss waking up from getting body-slammed or shot at or whatever only to realize she missed all the action . . . again.
Overall, though, I actually liked it. I agree with some of your points, but still . . . I liked it. And the series. Just can’t help it.
Meg´s last [type] ..Book review- ‘The Sky Always Hears Me- And The Hills Don’t Mind’ by Kirstin Cronn-Mills
I always have a hard time giving harsh opinions of books, but I must say now that you did it, it’s much easier to just say, “YES! What she said!” I kept hoping for a friend to read the series so I could discuss with them, but I think really I needed YOU to discuss it with!! MJ made my heart hurt and I think you pinpointed a lot of the reasons why.
A very interesting observation in the apparently different voices. HG seemed to me to tap dance around the violence it was describing. Yes, the situations were terrible and Katniss had angst, but the book stopped short of feeling as dark and disturbing as the subject matter warranted…I chalked that up to it being a YA book and Collins trying to tread lightly. By MJ, I think Collins assumed she was getting away with what was an atrocious topic and laid the dark on heavy, perhaps to make up for lighter tone in HG? How many atrocities can you fit into one book? My heart hurt and then got tired of hurting. So.dark. I’ve read several articles lately questioning “How dark is too dark for YA?” and I think MJ was the answer. I will never forgive Collins for killing Prim and blowing up frostbitten babies.
Yes for Katniss being just out of reach of being likeable. The love triangle was ridiculous, and, like Bella, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to be with her. Using kisses in lieu or consideration for feelings is a terrible example to set for young women, and acknowledging that flaw in the writing didn’t make it good writing. I kept hoping the chance to love Peeta through his recovery would be Katniss’s chance to demonstrate maturity and emotional growth, but it was a ball Collins dropped.
I was rooting for Peeta to win Katniss’s heart, but when they got married, I could have cared less. Which in a small part I liked….how Collins forced a focus on the politics of the book as opposed to the romance. I just think it could have been done better, and without a “Yeah, so we got married” ending.
I liked the concept of the series, as much as I think it pushed the envelope too far. But MJ just didn’t quite work for me. In other words…well said.
I liked it. Was is perfect? Absolutely not. Was it the best book of the series? No way. Was is it violent? Without a doubt. The violence didn’t bother me though because the subject was a futuristic world where children are forced to kill each other for the viewing pleasure of others and this can be stopped only by overthrowing the ruling government. War is violent. What I didn’t like was the way the characters personalities switched so abruptly between angry, distant, emotionally destroyed to capable, caring individuals without explanation and then back again to the previous state. The story seemed to jump around also. Overall though I thought it was good. I liked her ending up with Peeta and them not trying to sell it as the great “love story” but just two people that had been through so much together making a life together as best they can. Sometimes that is real life.
I felt like I was reading The Twilight series again – devoured the first book, hungered for more, and by the third, I felt used and ashamed for liking any of it. For all the reasons listed above, I was not impressed by this third book, especially…and my biggest wish as a idealistic reader, is that Prim didn’t die. Katniss spent 2 books trying to keep Prim alive, and got involved in the first place to save Prim. Her death was a waste, and not treated properly at all. The writing was better than Twilight, but not by much…
I actually loved the way the series wrapped up and thought it was a very (appropriately) dark ending. By the end she realizes that everyone thinks that she’s a person who will just do what is “best” for her–and she realizes that this is indeed true. She’s a limited character because her circumstances have kind of stunted her. And she ends up with Peeta out of circumstance more than love. So to me it actually seemed a very brave, non-saccharine ending.
Glad to see you in the hater camp.
softdrink´s last [type] ..The Tower- the Zoo- and the Tortoise
I can see where you’re coming from on the ending, and I agree that it says something less-than-desirable about Katniss that she ends up with Peeta because it is best for her, but I couldn’t get past the fact that she ended up with him at all…it seemed to bow to all of the “Team Peeta” fans who were going to be devastated (and vocal about it) if it ended any other way.
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i have a sore spot regarding this series, and thus enjoyed your less than glowing review.
up until this month, i successfully managed to read only free (non pirated) books on my kindle. somehow, i accidentally bought the first book in this series, breaking my streak..
too bad i have no desire to read it at all.. what a waste.. now i cant say “i never bought a book for my kindle” and it wasnt even for something i cared about.
erisian23´s last [type] ..Review- Draw the Dark- Ilsa J Bick surgeon wannabe
The Internet makes me feel less alone.
You said it, and the F bombs were excellent. It wasn’t just a disappointing book, for me. It was barely fucking readable. So much of it made so little sense. I tried to read it as some parable to wars, past and present, but it didn’t work out, partly because the writing was so terrible and the points she wanted to make were done so at the cost of characterization. And yeah, couldn’t suspend my disbelief on this one.
I think you’re right that she just broke down and cowed to the fans, gave some of them what they wanted even though Katniss never would have ended up with either of them. And the babies?
You said it: She needed an editor or friend to help her out. Instead we got what we got, and I’m just mad because I could have been reading one of the three dozen books in my pile. I’m sure most of them are better.
Being the somewhat thick-headed judge of character I am, I didn’t really pick up on or get too bothered by the characterization as I read it, as weird it was to see these guys flip-flop between emo, completely wrecked, and normal. The writing didn’t seem as tight anyways, so I shouldn’t have expected to get a great ending. But as the idealist I am, I’m not happy that she had Prim blown up. So Katniss spends all of her time trying to protect her little sister for years ever since their father died. Wonderful to see the whole point of the first two books come undone and thus, give me such a fulfilling ending. I’ll just ignore MockingJay’s continuity from now on, ‘kay thanks bye.
[...] for the book. This book is so dope, it’s going to make (The Hunger Games look like em>Mockingjay. (That’s right, I went there.) In all seriousness, I’m very excited to unleash this weird [...]
[...] Reviews: The Book Lady’s Blog | Literate Housewife | New York [...]
Mockingjay was very different from the first two books. In The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen is a strong woman who doesn’t let other people wear her down. She’s defiant and brave, a person to look up too. Then in Catching Fire I see a more desperate Katniss Everdeen, who doesn’t really know what to do. Fewer acts of defiance come up and the pressure on her is holding her down a little bit. But in Mockingjay everything is different. She isn’t Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire. I see her mental stability wear down to barely anything. Even though she’s free from the Capital, the pressure on her increases to the point where her mentality is at its low point. Most of the time I don’t see her fighting for freedom, even though she physically is. She loses the will. I find her wavering in her mental shell, trying not to die. The thing that keeps her going is knowing that Peeta is captured by the Capital and that they are torturing him. This is an act of foreshadowing. It foreshadows that she really loves Peeta even though she never utters the words or even admits it to herself in till way later on. Even with some little love left in her body, Katniss comes off very hardened and isn’t close to the brave and loving way she was in book one.
But what really ruins it for Katniss is when they actually get Peeta back. Because now Peeta isn’t the boy with bread, the one who loved Katniss Everdeen. He isn’t the one intent on saving his soul while everyone else throws theirs away in the Games. Thru torturing and tracker venom the Capital have replaced his memories with scary hallucinations that change is view on life. He thinks Katniss is out to get him and so he’s intent on killing her first. By book 3 everyone has fallen in love with Peeta themselves. His only wish is to keep Katniss alive. This makes his quick change even more unsettling. To see him as a murderous lunatic is scary for everyone and makes it depressing to keep reading. With Peeta in this mental state, Katniss’s instability increases and puts her thru extreme distress. Then I get to the ending. This part of the book just wasn’t good, and was awfully depressing. I got angry that Prim was killed in the bombing. This defeats the whole purpose of the series. It all starts when Katniss took her sister’s place in the Games. The point was to save Prim, and to kill her off in the end was brutal and heart wrenching. Because Prim died the relationship between Katniss and her mother broke entirely. It all defeated one of the messages in the book, to keep on loving. And Gale just leaves after the war. So it didn’t really give Katniss a choice on who to choose because Gale was gone either way. This was not very believable because I couldn’t think that he just stopped caring for Katniss. With Gale gone, the spectacular love scene I was waiting for never happened. And Katniss picking Peeta wasn’t satisfying as it was supposed to be. Peeta isn’t the loving boy I loved in book two so their so-called “love” in the end didn’t seem real since both of them weren’t in true mental health. But the one part that I hated the most was that Katniss Everdeen voted yes to holding one last Hunger Games, to try to kill off the Capital children. I don’t know if this was supposed to be an act of defiance against all that did her wrong, but I found it completely pointless. It just killed everything that she stood up for in the past two books. Katniss Everdeen, the girl on fire, would have never said yes to such a barbaric way of ending things. Especially, that it was supposed to be in the name of her dead sister. When she did this you saw her for what the war changed her to be; a heartless and unloving person who can’t take it anymore. Nonetheless, the ending was depressing because she doesn’t really win. Even though the Capital is gone and dead, Katniss might as well be also. Her physiological state is so terrible she can’t truly keep on living. But she does because Katniss Everdeen is supposed to be a fighter. I feel like the ending completely degraded everything that Katniss and Peeta stood for. None of the relationships Katniss had with anyone were mended. Except maybe “Peeta’s.” The book ended with no hope, no redemption and no real purpose. Katniss battling all that emotional stress, pressure, and loss didn’t truly fix anything. People still had died, people were still angry, and life doesn’t get better. In the end she’s just another cold, hardened person, who had let the Capital change her and her morals.