Pages: 455
Date: 30/08/2010
Grade: 5+
Details: no. 3 The Hunger Games
Own
O.M.G., O.M.G. This book is good. No, this book is great! It is all I hoped it would be and more. I'm so glad Collins didn't take any easy ways out, didn't try to make the story prettier than it ever could be and didn't try to make the ending nicer than would be believable.
I'm trying to write this review without actually touching on the story too much. A lot of people still have to read this book, and it would be a crime to spoil the story for them. On the other hand, I do want to share my thoughts and feelings on this story. So, my advice is, if you haven't read Mockingjay yet, stop reading this review now and come back to it after you've finished the story, because no matter how little story detail I reveal below, it's still going to be more than you want to know until after you've read the book for yourself.
All I will say about the story is that after having survived the Hunger Games for the second time, Katniss finds herself in district 13 with the rebel forces preparing to overthrow the government that has caused her so much pain.
The story that follows is not a pretty one. But then again, war is never pretty and should not be described as such. War brings suffering, loss and difficult, if not impossible, decisions. In a war situation there is no such thing as good versus bad, there is no moral high ground. The best you can hope for is that when you have a choice you pick the lesser of all evils available. And that's the situation Katniss finds herself in, trying to figure out what everybody's motives are. Aware that almost everybody around her is trying to use her in one way or another, it's up to her to try and figure out whose purpose is less destructive.
I read a review somewhere in which the reviewer complaint that this book was too violent. I wonder what the person who wrote that review expected. Writing a cozy book about a war would be equivalent to writing a lie. War isn't nice, and doesn't come with easy solutions or distinctions.
Collins makes that very clear in this book, and I think that is an important message to put out into a world where most people are only too happy to think in terms of them versus us, good versus evil, and black versus white. Life is never that simple, and war even less so. My compliments to Mrs. Collins for writing a realistic, yet beautiful, heartbreaking and completely engrossing book set in the middle of a war situation. This is one book I will be thinking about for a very long time and will be re-reading before to long.
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