Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

65 reviews

smartie_5748's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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leeyongjin's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5


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loveisabird's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

i’m old enough to have been in the target audience when mockingjay was released, and my main memories of the book are everyone seeming disappointed in the conclusion and after finally getting handed off a copy of the book from a friend feeling maybe not that negatively but at best neutral about it.

now to be fair, while 14-year-olds were ostensibly the target audience, how many 14-year-olds were really equipped to deal with the themes and questions put forward by mockingjay? how were 14-year-olds supposed to understand what was going on with president coin, or why katniss didn’t make her romantic choice until the last paragraph in the most undramatic manner?

so i stand by my belief that the hunger games should not have been YA books. mockingjay does tell a good story, even with all its tragedies, which is evident when you’re 27. but that good story is ridiculously rushed. so my new the hot take is that mockingjay should have been two books. i think both more things needed to happen plot-wise in the revolution, and we needed more time spent on some of the things that did happen. (admittedly an argument that could be made for any of these books).

conveniently taking this stance means the controversial stance that it was correct to have two mockingjay movies is further validated. it SHOULD have been two movies because it should have been two BOOKS!!!!!!!!

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judeb0x's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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samanthaeumir's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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books_r_fetch's review

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adventurous dark sad fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Honestly I am still mad about
Prim and finnick
unnecessary deaths, but really this is a WAR. people die! I don't understand why some people are missing that! 
Also, some people complain about the love triangle between katniss, gale, and peeta. However, I don't think this book is a romantic thing. It doesn't have the same feel as the other books.
Some people complain about the book being boring, but that's not the case for me. The only boring part for me is (slight not really spoiler) when there is that long period of time when snow is alive and katniss is silent. Personally, this is the most boring book of the three, only because in the first and second book included the actual hunger games and not becoming part of the Capitol. But, let's face it, we all saw it coming.
If y'all really don't like this, I can see why, but I give this a 5/5!

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r1vana's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

In this book, I saw a more flawed Katniss. She is a strong character who was/is burdened by the power hungry old people; and their audacity. 
She is a total mess and psychologically not treatable. 
Reading her being filmed and act with cameras around her was hard to read. It’s like she was back in the capitol but more traumatized then ever.

On the other hand, I hate love triangles. And this book did not help either. There were times I hated Katniss for actually playing both of them. The plot was already stressful enough. I just didn’t care about Katniss’s love story. Honestly I preferred the films interpretation. 

Hunger Games is an anthem. Will always cherish it.

PSA: I wanted to read this series because I still haven’t watching the ballad of songbirds and snares. But I also wanted to read Crimson Rivers (an ff).

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cecinamo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Amazing end to the trilogy! It had me hooked beginning to end, I finished it in less than a day. Katniss is such an interesting character, I love how she is portrayed as human, not as this perfect protagonist. Also just they way Suzanne Collins wrote all the characters was amazing. They all had such depth. All the deaths were heartbreaking.
maybe not Alma Coins ;)
 

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ag_berry's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0


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downsophialane's review against another edition

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dark emotional medium-paced
  • Loveable characters? Yes

4.5

This book is by far the hardest of the series to read; it's just so bleak and so sad. Every character is so horrendously traumatised. It's hard to watch Gale becoming more and more warlike, especially knowing how that ends. It's hard to see Peeta as a twisted husk of the lovely boy he was before. The expansion of Finnick's character is emotional but very well done.
His death is just so incredibly unfair, and I had forgotten it... because we, and Katniss, are never given a chance to properly mourn him. Prim's death feels like such an obvious metaphor - an effective one - but we spent so much time with Finnick and understood so much of his trauma. And then, we aren't given a chance to mourn him - which is why I'm sure I totally forgot that it happened! In my mind Finnick will be living a long, peaceful life with Annie by the sea somewhere.


Mockingjay is a war book. It's not my subgenre and reading it is stressful and awful. But, some bloated pacing in the middle notwithstanding, it's a very good book, asking young adult readers challenging questions of culpability in oppressive systems. That passivity can be violent was a massively influential idea for me when I first read this book in 2010 (and forever after). 

It's wild that love triangle had the cultural grip that it did because it's actually so sophisticated and complex? The key relationships and characters are so fascinating. I will never not be thinking about Peeta Mellark and Haymitch Abernathy and Finnick Odair. 

Some of the pacing in the middle was a little bloated but that ending was something to behold. Every decision.
The rebels win the war.... off page? Our heroine is unconscious for it? Such an interesting subversion of the Chosen One trope.


Excellent narration by Tatiana Maslany. 

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