![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Just finished reading Mockingjay, the last book in the Hunger Games trilogy.
I... didn't like it as much as the other two.
Hunger Games was awesome. The plot pushed you through it and the action and angst were interspersed with a constant thread of self-depreciating humor - which is exactly what I love best. Catching Fire continued this, and included backstory and fleshed out the stage even more, dropping hints here and there and then carrying through on some foreshadowing whilst using others as a distraction.
The beginning of Mockingjay worked for me but, about halfway through or so, it just... didn't. The situations and characters seemed too forced and too over-the-top. It became almost a characiture of the other books. This could be seen as furthering the statement of the world the characters found themselves in in general, but instead came across more as "let's make this bigger and better and more!" instead. There were deaths of characters that did not need to die, and they were mentioned in passing as more of an afterthought than as a moving moment, which is what you would expect after the build up. The ending was okay, but almost fell flat, like the author was trying to figure out a way to wrap things up and be done.
Yes, I am keeping this purposefully vague so as to not ruin it for anyone who has not read it yet and/or for people who may disagree.
If Hunger Games was a 10 (or 9.5), Catching Fire was about an 8.5 and Mockingjay fell down to maybe a 6, if not a 5. Better than some of the stuff out there, but a bit of a disappointment after the utter excellence of the way it began.
Again, I just finished it and desperately need to go to sleep so I can go to work in the morning, but this is how things sit in my mind as of now.
I... didn't like it as much as the other two.
Hunger Games was awesome. The plot pushed you through it and the action and angst were interspersed with a constant thread of self-depreciating humor - which is exactly what I love best. Catching Fire continued this, and included backstory and fleshed out the stage even more, dropping hints here and there and then carrying through on some foreshadowing whilst using others as a distraction.
The beginning of Mockingjay worked for me but, about halfway through or so, it just... didn't. The situations and characters seemed too forced and too over-the-top. It became almost a characiture of the other books. This could be seen as furthering the statement of the world the characters found themselves in in general, but instead came across more as "let's make this bigger and better and more!" instead. There were deaths of characters that did not need to die, and they were mentioned in passing as more of an afterthought than as a moving moment, which is what you would expect after the build up. The ending was okay, but almost fell flat, like the author was trying to figure out a way to wrap things up and be done.
Yes, I am keeping this purposefully vague so as to not ruin it for anyone who has not read it yet and/or for people who may disagree.
If Hunger Games was a 10 (or 9.5), Catching Fire was about an 8.5 and Mockingjay fell down to maybe a 6, if not a 5. Better than some of the stuff out there, but a bit of a disappointment after the utter excellence of the way it began.
Again, I just finished it and desperately need to go to sleep so I can go to work in the morning, but this is how things sit in my mind as of now.
Tags: