Take a photo of a barcode or cover
blindmanbaldwin 's review for:
Mockingjay
by Suzanne Collins
Interesting how television is the ultimate weapon here. This idea recurs through all three books, but it's at its most apparent in "Mockingjay" during an actual war going on. A quick search tells me Collins spent years working as a television writer, which puts that into a new context!
I still don't know how I want to use Goodreads — but because I'm me I'll inevitably end up writing something. "The Hunger Games" is my favorite of the three. That book has a great propulsion to it where we're pulled into a strange world and unpack all of the horrors. "Catching Fire" starts slow but finishes strong. "Mockingjay" is the opposite where it moves at the start but sort of falls apart in the ending. Finale here is rather passive, with certain big emotional beats not having a lot of weight as a result.
Even so — the books bind together in image. Television is the weapon, the false reality played here. Throughout all three books, we see Katniss work towards understanding truth/trust. What can she believe in? It's not ideology. It's not revenge. Ultimately, it's love. Here, in "Mockingjay", this theme plays out through Peeta's brainwashing. He's stuck in an artificial world and she has to pull him out through reality. But to teach him reality, she has to teach herself reality. It's not as well-crafted in the structure as it could be, but it's there and it resonates.
Katniss is this savior not for anything she is but because of the image. Except the only reason the image had power is because of who she is. The love was just a story but it was always real — she just didn't know it at the start.
Desire makes a character. Ironic desire makes a well-written character. At the first book, Katniss doesn't want to ever get married or have children because of the cruel world that targets children. It's ironic — Katniss has so much love/compassion in her heart she locks it up. So her real desire is to change the whole world. Once that happens, no surprise she is able to unlock her heart.
It's fine. I enjoyed how bloody and visceral it gets within the context of a book for kids. Especially like how broken Katniss is psychologically. She is tired. Someone once said an easy way to make a story is to write the worst day in a character's life, and that most certainly applies here!
I still don't know how I want to use Goodreads — but because I'm me I'll inevitably end up writing something. "The Hunger Games" is my favorite of the three. That book has a great propulsion to it where we're pulled into a strange world and unpack all of the horrors. "Catching Fire" starts slow but finishes strong. "Mockingjay" is the opposite where it moves at the start but sort of falls apart in the ending. Finale here is rather passive, with certain big emotional beats not having a lot of weight as a result.
Even so — the books bind together in image. Television is the weapon, the false reality played here. Throughout all three books, we see Katniss work towards understanding truth/trust. What can she believe in? It's not ideology. It's not revenge. Ultimately, it's love. Here, in "Mockingjay", this theme plays out through Peeta's brainwashing. He's stuck in an artificial world and she has to pull him out through reality. But to teach him reality, she has to teach herself reality. It's not as well-crafted in the structure as it could be, but it's there and it resonates.
Katniss is this savior not for anything she is but because of the image. Except the only reason the image had power is because of who she is. The love was just a story but it was always real — she just didn't know it at the start.
Desire makes a character. Ironic desire makes a well-written character. At the first book, Katniss doesn't want to ever get married or have children because of the cruel world that targets children. It's ironic — Katniss has so much love/compassion in her heart she locks it up. So her real desire is to change the whole world. Once that happens, no surprise she is able to unlock her heart.
It's fine. I enjoyed how bloody and visceral it gets within the context of a book for kids. Especially like how broken Katniss is psychologically. She is tired. Someone once said an easy way to make a story is to write the worst day in a character's life, and that most certainly applies here!