“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”

Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins

Consider my mind changed. I never used to like Mockingjay. To be honest, teenage-me was probably just bitter about Prim. But during this read through, I fell truly in love with Mockingjay.

It was everything I wanted a finale to be. The themes carried into a whole new setting, there was nonstop action, the character development never ceased and the ending wrapped up everything nicely.

This time around, I’ve just been so impressed with Collins’ writing and story structure. You literally just don’t see books this good anymore (at least in my opinion). They are flawless. And this last installment of the iconic trilogy is nothing less than stellar.

Overall, I really caught onto the theme of war vs. humanity and how it translates from The Hunger Games into Mockingjay. Katniss never could separate the tribute from the Games, and in this book she can’t separate people from the war. She sees the children flocking to the president’s mansion and sees the children of District 12 fleeing the bombs, because she’s always understood that people are people no matter where they are born. 

Meanwhile, Gale’s anger burned too hot to see the line the Capitol tried so hard to cover. He’s justifiably mad, but it’s not directed to the right enemy. Katniss needed the reminder from Haymitch in Catching FIre: “remember who the real enemy is.” The real enemy has always been the Capitol. Not the citizens, but Snow and the government he constructed around him. 

I can rant all day about it, no joke. But I’ll stop myself there and give Yinz the rest of my thoughts while rereading Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.

• I love how SC always establishes Katniss’ characterization in the opening pages. Readers get to see her priorities shift with each book. In Mockingjay, we see Katniss examining her old life in ashes. She’s forced to come to terms with that. There’s no going back. She’s faced not with survival but with herself. It’s new and difficult to get a grip on.

• I will always appreciate how SC shows the mental and physical effects war has on her main characters. Katniss doesn’t have to be physically and mentally elite at all times. She’s just a girl. A CHILD. The trauma she’s endured is going to fuck her up more than a little bit; it will render her incapacitated at time as she takes time to process everything she’s been through and continues to go through.
• Page 54 / Should Katniss hate her prep team? I say no. They were pieces of the Games, as well. They partook in making Katniss a pawn. But they were never malicious. They weren’t cheering for her to kill or be killed — they just wanted her to look her best. They even comforted Katniss in a weird way. And she understood they were just byproducts of their environment. She wouldn’t judge them for their Capitol upbringing (at least not too harshly). Capitol citizens are still human, and if you can’t realize that, you’re no better than Snow *looks at Gale and Coin*
• Gale needs a mentor. His anger is out of control and misdirected. He needs a Haymitch.
• District 13 is no better than the Capitol in their treatment of Katniss. They want her to be nothing but a prop for their cause. Her sway always derived from action, but 13 just wants her to be another piece in their own Game. Katniss is still in the arena.
• Page 100 / “And if we burn, you burn with us.” What a quote. The whole world can burn. We don’t care. The anger of the oppressed vs. their oppressor. Death is a better option than going back to being oppressed.
• I think Gale loses sight of the issue and enemy the angrier he gets. He wants to raze the Capitol to the ground, create as much destruction as possible. He doesn’t care who he hurts. He doesn’t care about casualties. It’s about his personal vendetta against an oppressive government. His anger is justified but misdirected. Snow made it personal for Katniss, but Gale doesn’t have that. It’s widespread hate for the life he undeservingly had compared to those in the Capitol.
  • That’s the difference between Katniss and Gale. Katniss can’t stop seeing people as people. That’s what made the Games so hard for her. Yes, she can kill. But it haunts her. 

• I feel so awful for Haymitch. To think he finally was able to save not one but two tributes and now he failed to protect the second. How that must eat at him and remind him of all the other children he failed in the past. I’m not ready for Sunrise on the Reaping.
• Page 156 / It really hurt to see Finnick so broken. He’s the Capitol’s golden boy; everything the Capitol victor to be. He felt so untouchable, let alone breakable. That image is now shattered. Poor Finnick. A pawn in the Capitol’s cruel Games for the majority of his life. 
• Sobbing over Katniss describing how compassionate Prim is (even though she couldn’t come up with the exact word) only for Katniss to say Gale’s plan focused on taking advantage of human impulses like compassion. Gale is losing his grip on his own compassion/humanity. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. There’s no line for Gale because there isn’t a line for the Capitol.
• What the Capitol did to Peeta is crushing because it’s exactly what he fought so hard against. They took away his sense of self after they stole everything else from him — his family, his innocence, his childhood, his peace, his love.
• I adore that everyone roots for Katniss to live. Too many children have died already. Katniss has fought so hard, done so much, she deserves the chance to live — which is all she’s ever wanted for herself. That’s the problem with Coin. Coin sees Katniss as a pawn and competition because who wouldn’t want power? But Katniss never wanted power, she just wanted to survive.
• Katniss getting shot is one of my favorite scenes in the book because it’s from someone in the crowd. She broke through to the man pointing a gun at her, but she can’t sway everyone. She will always be a villain to some. It’s like Gale not seeing a line or Katniss wanting to be the one to kill Snow. It’s a personal vendetta. 
• I will say, it’s nice that Katniss and Peeta get to fall in love for real this time without the weight of the Games. Because there was always a cloud over them due to the “acting.” This isn’t survival now, it’s love. Real. 
• Does Katniss ever understand why she’s the Mockingjay? I feel like she doesn’t get it until she puts the arrow in Coin’s heart. It’s not costumes or videos or her star-crossed lovers story; it’s her ability to do what it takes to survive. Her ordinariness. She’s just a girl who defied the Capitol over and over. 
• Page 329 /. Is it fair for Gale to say Katniss will choose the boy she can’t survive without? What does he mean exactly? I guess Katniss has always been a survivor. She does what she needs. But I think maybe Gale meant it more cynically because he’s seen her flip flop when each has been in pain. However, she’s been under severe stress in those situations where she doesn’t get a moment to think about herself and her feelings. She’ll choose the one she can’t survive without but because of heartbreak. Plus, she couldn’t survive Gale’s rage. It would burn her to ashes because of her own anger.

• Finnick dying always tears a piece of my soul out. Just after everything he endured and survived, it finally looked like he could just be happy. However, he still dies at the Capitol’s hands. The Capitol took his life as they always would.
• I‘lol say it, Prim had to die. Stop booing! I’m right! For Katniss to realize the enemies are on both sides, she needed to see the cruelty Coin was capable of. Even if it’s ambiguous, it says a lot that it COULD have been the rebels. And Prim dying is the final straw for Katniss, who spent her entire life ensuring Prim’s safety. She no longer has anything to lose.
  • Speaking of that, Coin also needed to die. She would’ve been Snow 2.0. And with Katniss’ last big act, she kills Coin to avenge Prim to complete the circle started when she volunteered for her sister in THG. Katniss’ arc is complete
• ”Real” *sobs*
  • I genuinely love the epilogue just because it means Katniss got the world and life she never could have dreamed off — the world she could bring children into that wouldn’t have to fear the Arena. She won the Game. Her and Peeta. They are victors and it’s another full circle moment to wrap up the trilogy. 

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