Book Review: Mockingjay

SPOLIER ALERT!

Read at your own risk.

I warned you, so don’t say I’m rude.

Real or not real? The last book of the Hunger Games series ventures further into a brutal psychological game that characters must face and endure. Emotions run high and only the strong, and the lucky, survives.



Mockingjay begins with Katniss Erverdeen’s visit to the charred remains of District 12. Gale Hawthorne, best friend and potential lover, watches over her on a hovercraft. She’s too precious to lose because, back in District 13, she’s considered an asset to the revolution. She is the symbol of the revolution’s goals and the hope of Panem’s populace. She is the one. She is the appointed hero who could free Panem from the Capitol’s tyranny. Or is she really?

Real or not real?

What worked

This question voices out one of the many themes in the novel. Trust. Deception. Belief. Disbelief. In a time of war, one could only hold on to the most essential element of survival. It is different from one person to another depending on the role he/she plays in the midst of armed conflict. Collins shows her readers this side of human nature. And it is not a pretty picture.

Characters like Gale, Beetee and Plutarch Heavensbee relied on their skills. Snow and Coin, their great need to stay in power. Haymitch, his influence on Katniss and Peeta being their mentor in the games and the quell. Many times, Katniss would come face to face with her own ruthlessness to survive. All the hate she’s kept in her heart motivated her to rise up to the role thrown upon her by the rebels. In the end, she is no more but a casualty, a victim of the war. She kept mementos of past lives during peacetime. One way to establish reality and to convince her self what was real and what was not.

Despite the destruction, it is Peeta Mellark who survived with the most grace and class. He knew at the start of the games the things worth fighting for – his identity; his values for the preservation of life; and whom he loves. He is a very consistent character, solid and yet, evolving. Reading Katniss’s state of mind and emotional disposition is very tiresome. As a reader, I latch myself to hope in all three books and Peeta Mellark symbolizes that. The boy with the bread lives! And he lives in my heart. He struggled through mental alterations and grappled with the truth, especially his feelings for Katniss. In the end, he was burned but lucid enough to know how to heal himself and how to deal with the loss.



As a genre, sci-fi aims to amaze and frighten. The what if’s and the plausibility of the impossible happen but, alongside these possibilities, hope floats. Even in great loss, hope finds a way. In real life, it is the same. The book offers the reader a good amount of grim and gore. Then again, life is also made of weddings and reconciliations; of friendships and compassion; of healing and forgiveness.

What line divides sci-fi from realistic fiction then? Collins makes it clear that there is none. The deaths of many children and the tyranny of Snow and the deceptions of Coin are reminders of the victims of war and those who propagate it. It's like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Hitler and Mussolini. The Allied Forces and the A-bomb. In the hands of an effective Language Arts teacher, Mockingjay is a perfect book to discuss cross curricular units in world government, literary genre and the very nature and complexities of the human mind and heart.

What did not work

The point of view has always confused me. I did a lot of lacuna jumping and to some degree it could work. Not for me though. Not all the time. Collins fills these gaps through Katniss’ narrations. It’s too limiting for my convenience.

Then again, I contradict myself since the effect is similar to putting pieces of a puzzle together. For most readers, this is a mental exercise and much excitement can be derived from this. Those who are very cerebral will revel in reading the book. There are so many foreshadowings on who Katniss will end up with. It's a dead a give away by Chapter three.

Over all, the Mockingjay is a painful but satisfying read to close the trilogy. I was pretty beat up in the end, just like Katniss. Her survival proved little to justify her as victor of the games. In war, there are no winners. People in power are dangerous. There is nothing romantic about revolutions. Losses from violence never fades. The human spirit is strong enough to survive and heal itself. Yet, it is also too weak and too forgetful to learn from the lessons of history.

Book Review: Catching Fire

This is long.

If you have the patience, read on.

If you're a fan, you will enjoy this.

If you have not read the book yet, forego reading this review unless you really want to know where the smoke comes from.

There are SPOILERS so don't say I did not warn you.

Catching Fire immediately started where The Hunger Games ended. In this second installment, Katniss and Peeta struggle to survive the post Hunger Games trauma. Both continue to promote their on screen romance although, for Peeta, it has always been as real as bread. Their dark, haunting dreams are aplenty, but facing the districts of the dead tributes when they do the rounds of the victory tour is a living nightmare. A grave threat looms over Katniss's loved ones, including her pretend cousin Gale, because, her performance and victory in the Games reek off rebellion. For Katniss, the fake suicide was was many things but it was primarily an attempt to save her life and Peeta's. For Panem's terrorized majority, it was a sign that the Capitol can be challenged. Soon, sparks of insurgency erupted in different districts prompting President Snow to bring back Katniss and Peeta, and a host of past victors to the third Quarter Quell, an upsized Hunger Games in remembrance of Panem's Dark Days. Katniss and Peeta once again face their adversaries only to find out that they were merely a part of a conspiracy plan to overthrow President Snow and the Capitol's ruling elite.

What worked
Changes. Challenges. Choices. These are themes that surround Catching Fire and its predecessor, The Hunger Games that readers can flesh out, put back and break down again and again. This is the beauty of HG and CF. It lends new insights, perspectives and possibilities to readers of all ages. Best of all, it opens readers to the complicated nature of the human spirit. Collins may have not consciously intended the books to be an avenue where one can profoundly examine the complexities of the human heart and mind, but I, at least, could not help but delve into the motivations of the book's characters and the reasons for their decisions. I even came to a point when I had to imagine myself in the shoes of her characters, some are flat, predictable and stereotypical. There are, however, characters in the round who transform and grow as the novel unfolds.

Collins has created flawed and conflicted characters you could not easily forget. There's Haymitch who is more than a drunkard. Cinna, Katniss's stylist during the games, who can create fantabulous costumes but expressed his own brand of rebellion half way through the book. I imagine him to be a young Michael Caine in the movie Ms. Congeniality. If I cried over Rue in HG it is Cinna whom I shed tears for in CF. My heart goes out to Finnick Odair, a popular victor of the Games who is in love with a deranged woman. Gale Hawthorne who I predict will be a Che Guevarra in the making is beginning to grow on me. But I remain in the Team Peeta flagship. Yes, I'm all the way for the boy with the bread.

Apart from Rue, Johanna Mason and Mags, Finnick's eighty year old mentor, are the female characters I admire. Mrs. Everdeen and Prim are accessories to highlight Katniss's strengths and weaknesses. They also contribute to the plausibility of Katniss' reason for being. She became a hunter to feed them. She learned mistrust when her mother withdrew from the reality of her father's death. Her relationship with Prim tethers her to the concept of family. And it is this connection that she holds on so dearly or else, she will lose her sense of self. Finally, I came to understand the girl on fire.

This vulnerability could only lead me to cheer and root for a Peeta-Katniss tandem in book three. But I doubt. In the end, I have a sinking feeling that Gale will win her over from this trilogy's resident nerd. It's unfair. The nerd deserves the girl. Gale's response to the rebellion is more aggressive. Peetah is the active non-violent kind who will exhaust all efforts for negotiations and dialogues. As for the rebellion, this is something Katniss continues to evade unsuccessfully.

Looking at the romance angle, it is an allegory on choices and self-identity. Katniss is in the middle of two different ideologies and identities for which she is too confused to decide on. Peetah and Gale are representations of two sides of the rebellion. Katniss kissed Gale in the woods. Peeta in the arena. What else can I say but, Go girl! By the end of CF, she loses Peeta and District 12. She may have woken up with Gale looking down upon her offering nothing but the truth, but (as I'm keeping my fingers crossed), it is Peeta whom she will be motivated to save from the crutches of the Capitol.

2010 seems too far off.

What did not work
The Point of View. I would have wanted to know the mind scape of the other characters.

I'm on my third reading of HG and CF. Call me a fan, but it's the psychological unfolding of each character and their responses to the external environment that keeps me going back to the books. In general, CF, like HG is being enjoyed by readers of all ages. This only goes to show that Collins has written a well crafted novel that does not use sex or the sensual appeal of the undead.

Source for image:
http://burdge-bug.deviantart.com/art/Peeta-and-Katniss-130892793?moodonly=1

Book Review: The Hunger Games

Be warned! There are SPOILERS in this review!

By some stroke of luck, I was able to acquire a copy of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games for free. Thank you Scholastic Philippines! Let's just say that I was at the right time at the right place.

It's been a while since I last read a young adult novel and yes, I was craving to devour one. Did the novel satisfy my hunger? Here's a rundown of what I thought worked and what did not.

What worked

The Hunger Games is set in post apocalyptic North America known as Panem. Advancement in science and technology is so profound that it has created a great divide between the Capitol, the seat of a tyrant government, and its twelve districts. The Capitol is the land of the privileged. The districts are impoverished places populated by groups of people who each work on a specific industry that keeps the Capitol alive and bustling. Peacekeepers are a plenty in each district and they do more than merely keep the peace. They instill fear and terror to prevent rebellion and uprising. In Collins' created dystopia, the past offers a rich history of destruction, war and violence.

It is in this background where I find Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, two teenagers who played in the Hunger Games and triumphed in the merciless arena set by the Capitol's Game makers. The Games is a Capitol run reality TV show that pits twenty four teenagers, age 12-18 against each other to the death. You read that right. DEATH. In Collins' Panem, death is a game and life is a candlelight that can easily be snuffed out. In this fictional world, the Hunger Games is the Capitol's way to control people and to stay in power. Sounds familiar, right?

There really is nothing new under the sun but a writer who can creatively render such themes and elements into something new produces magic.

This is where Collins succeeded. Her plot structures are well crafted that her lead characters make decisions that affect external and internal conflicts in the novel. For example, the external environment such as the killings that happened in the arena has a greater pull on Katniss' decision to save Peeta's life. The effect of her decision to fake a suicide bubbles up the conflict that has been simmering underneath every district (save for District 1 and 2). For Katniss and Peeta, dying together is better than killing each other off. To the Capitol, it spells rebellion. To the people of Panem who watched the Games, it elicited a host of impressions and ideas in varying degrees of intensity. A romance between Katniss and Peeta. An expression of rebellion. A stand to be true to one's self. A fight against a bigger structure and system manipulate and control individual and collective identities. These rising conflicts are further explored in the second book, Catching Fire, as well as the two teenagers' motivation in the fake suicide act. Was it done out of love or rebellion? Or both?

Collins advantageously made use of her knowledge of TV and broadcast media, its power and influence on televiewers. The Games is so convincingly real. Think Survivor or Pinoy Big Brother. She also brought back the classics through this book. JK Rowling has done that with the Harry Potter series, but Collins spins the basic thread of her story in the spindles of the science fiction genre. The Hunger Games reminds of three things: Greek. Grimm. Golding. Bravo!

What did not work

Katniss Everdeen. Her reluctant hero act is not as well established as Harry Potter's. She's the book's Cinderella, but I am apathetic to her. I'd rather drop a parachute of bread to Peeta in the arena to keep him alive so he can continue to charm the rest of Panem and the reading world.

Katniss is a hunter. She can fend for herself and take care of her family. Why would she find herself unsubstantial or ordinary?Claim it, girl! The denial act is so lame.

It's just me, I suppose. In a way, Collins once again struck the gongs of success by putting opposite characters to hate and love and love and hate at the same time. Peeta is witty and pleasant. Katniss is emotional and defensive. Peeta, despite having a nagger of a mother, is mature enough to make sacrifices. Katniss, in spite of her protective nature for her younger sister Prim, is clueless on Peeta's motives and the emotions that surges through her during and after the Games.

Over all, it's a GOOD read. So many characters have begun to grow on me that I'm excited to read about them in book 2, Catching Fire. My special favorite is Peeta Mellark, of course, but Gale Hawthorne and Haymicth Abernathy are interesting characters to watch for in the next book. Of course, I'll write a review.