The Hunger Games Triology: A Review

*****PLEASE BE ADVISED, SPOILERS MAY BE PRESENT BELOW*****

The much anticipated final book in the Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins came out last week.  I've been stamping my foot with impatience since the release of the second book last year, waiting to read exactly what happened to the people in District 12.  I'm been desperate to know just how Collins was going to unravel the love triangle between Katniss, Gale and Peeta.  And most of all, I was aching with the need to know if good would once again prevail against evil.

It took me almost a week after the book came out to finally find the time and mind frame to open it and read.  If you're not familiar with the series, the best word to describe it is revolution.  It's one of those books that you can't put down because you have to know how it ends, if only to unloosen that hard knot of despair and helplessness that has been lodged in your gut since you turned that first page.

Most of the third book continued along those lines. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, desperate to know what would happen next.  The end was finally drawing near; the enemy would finally be put to rest.  I knew people I had come to know and love would die.  That's what happens in the Hunger Games, no matter what arena the players are in.

But I just wasn't prepared for the ending.  Literally, unprepared.  Because it just came out of nowhere.  People died left and right.  I knew they would die, but yet I expected more from their deaths.  Really, it was just...anticlimactic.  That is the best word to describe it.  That, and disappointing.

I absolutely love this series and was riveted until almost the very end.  But in those last few chapters, it seemed like steps were missed, that pieces were never fully put into place.  I was left feeling that there were too many loose ends.  Too many people not fully put to rest.  Too many emotions never truly explored. 

Maybe that's how I'm suppose to feel, though.  Maybe that was Collins purpose all along.  Because evil and war and revolution and death are not easy things.  They can't be tied up neatly in a bow.  People do not come out of them unchanged.

The Katniss who took her sister's place in the Hunger Games in the first book was a completely different person than the one left at the end of the last.  The same can be said for all the characters who came out alive at the end.  War changes people.

I realize this review is possibly confusing.  Did I like the book?  Would I recommend it to others?  The answer to both of those is a resounding yes. But I was left feeling disappointed in the way Collins chose to end the book--mostly because I have so many questions left unanswered.

I think everyone should read this series.  Although it's a fictional book set in the future, it is real.  It screams out against social injustice.  It unapologetically displays cruelty amongst mankind.  It defiantly brings forth a revolution.

It makes me want to create change.