"Mockingjay," Suzanne Collins

** spoiler alert ** I am not at all satisfied with this ending. It feels too crushing. More heavy that it needed to be.

In the first two books, I raced through, enthralled by the action, the horror, the love triangle. The good/repressed/poor determined to defeat the bad/indulged/rich. The reader fell in love with all of the characters. This time around, there wasn't much more than our beloved characters being tortured, maimed, used, killed. A war waged between two powers, neither good, with the blood of ci...moreI am not at all satisfied with this ending. It feels too crushing. More heavy that it needed to be.

In the first two books, I raced through, enthralled by the action, the horror, the love triangle. The good/repressed/poor determined to defeat the bad/indulged/rich. The reader fell in love with all of the characters. This time around, there wasn't much more than our beloved characters being tortured, maimed, used, killed. A war waged between two powers, neither good, with the blood of citizens, merely pawns, soaking into the ground they fought over.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD




And our hero? Katniss? Broken, burned, traumatized nearly beyond recognition. Did the author need to kill Prim? Need to isolate Katniss? It just all felt so heavy-handed. I invested in reading three books, put in a lot of caring. That much darkness can't be relieved by a two-page epilogue showing children and a vague happiness (or at least not a bone-crushing sadness) 15 years down the line.

3 stars