Mockingjay was my least favorite of The Hunger Games trilogy because it was a big change from the first two novels. I found the story compelling and readily admit that I wasn’t sure how the love triangle was going to wind up, but overall I was disappointed in how the main story turned out. It’s still worth reading if you liked the first two books.

If you haven’t read the first two books, don’t read this review any further. There’s no way I can review this book without blowing the first two for you. That being said, this book begins just moments after Catching Fire ended. If you recall, the second book ended on a cliffhanger. I was lucky enough to start this series after all three books were published, so I didn’t have to wait for what happened next. It is in this book that the master plan is finally revealed, and it becomes a much larger story. I just didn’t like the direction it took.

In this book you will learn that there is a District 13 even though you probably already suspected so because there have been so many hints leading up to it. The people of that outside district have been planning a revolt for some time, and even Haymitch was in on it. Katniss became a face and voice of the opposition, and all the problems she helped to created in the second book turned things into a full scale war in this book. While this sounds exciting like it might promise to see Katniss leading some kind of rebellion a la Red Dawn, it’s not like that at all. Instead, she goes from one dictatorship to another.

Perhaps it’s the action movie fan in me that was expecting a more explosive conclusion to the series. In some way I should be thankful that it defied my expectations, but at the same time I didn’t like the way things played out. There is a big shift in tone with this book as it is much darker and more emotional because you know Katniss will finally have to choose between Peeta and Gale. As a male reader, I was more interested in the overall story and the rebellion movement. My wife, on the other hand, was more worried about which boy she’d end up with. Go figure.

If there is a moral to this story, it’s that prolonged war can desensitize you so much that you can become villainous. History has proven time and again that some of the world’s worse people thought they were doing a good thing, in some fashion. In the middle of all that’s happening here, Katniss remains the constant innocent who wants none of the fighting, whether it’s against her fellow tributes, against the Capitol, or even alongside her friends. She just wants to go back to the woods and hunt and live a quiet life. To find out if she gets what she wants, you’ll have to read Mockingjay.

Recommended: Yes