Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I think I can talk about this now. This book exists entirely in emotional textures for me. It’s like how a song can become so closely entwined with emotional response so you don’t know what is coming from the music and what is welling up from that breathless perfect moment you first heard it. This is always going to be the book I was reading when my girlfriend got her cancer diagnosis. I don’t have a lot of my usual tools here, is what I’m saying.



So, okay. Things I love.



I love the way this book talks about PTSD. Because no, it’s not like it politely waits until the war is over to come calling. Katniss broke on the wheel, but it was still turning.



I love how textured this universe is. Collins has the gift of sketching depth in just a few quick lines. There are several dozen people who could have narrated parts of this series: Finick, Annie, Haymitch, Johanna, Prim, her prep team, the list goes on. Katniss is embedded in a story that is far bigger and older than she is, and Collins does that perfectly. This is not a book about one girl coming out of nowhere to single-handedly save the world.



I love the way Collins has of distilling her thematic work down to little phrases that she replays and alters over the series. “Real or not real?” “Fire is catching.” “I am on fire.” It’s an obvious technique, and kind of plain, so perfect for these books.



I love how I complained a bit to myself at the end of Catching fire that I wished Peeta had an existence in something other than stock young adult lit boy devotion. And How Collins thought about that, too, and made me go, “no wait I’m sorry I’m sorry I take it back.”



I love how this series isn’t really about reality TV. I mean, it is, but it’s about the thing underneath. It’s about the narratives we make and consume, so packaged entertainment is only one piece of it. It’s not just a war of shooting flaming arrows, it’s a war of narratives. I love how Peeta’s story is all about that. Katniss films propaganda, but Peeta has to make sense of it all. He’s one hell of a soldier.


( Spoilers from here on out )

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