Mockingjay

I didn't care about the outcome of this book until the last 20 pages.

I felt obligated to finish this book because I love Katniss as a character. I wanted to know what happened between her and Peeta. I wanted to know how Gale took the change. But other than that, this book was boring and hard to get through.

Unlike the first two books of the series, there is very little action. Katniss herself spends much of the book in an apathetic stupor and it's hard not to join her. The war between the Districts and the Capital could have been a very interesting backdrop to the main story of how Katniss recovers from the Quarter Quell, but it flounders and flops. Instead of energizing the readers, Katniss seems too tired and bored to do much of anything.

When she is acting as the Mockingjay, think Joan of Arc without the nasty burning at the stake, she finally regains her strength of will and mind. She becomes the character I fell in love with in the Arena. But that doesn't happen until well into the book, and even then the scenes are short-lived and staged.

But, I continued reading because if there is one thing Collins can do well (and there are many) it's the cliffhanger. Just as I was about to give up on the book completely, she would throw some twist in the last sentence. Granted, the twists were not really that surprising, but they were enough to keep me reading.

And then I hit the last chapters.

Finally, Collins and Katniss hit their strides. Katniss-the-badass returns at full speed and Collins' mastery of story makes it impossible to put down. Too bad the first 370 pages were so meh.

So, I give Mockingjay only three stars because it must be hard to maintain the sheer amazingness of the first two books, and Mockingjay fails. But, it's still a good ending to the series.