Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.........

Image from en.wikipedia.org.

This book is the third and final in The Hunger Games series. (Did I need another "the" there? It looks funny both ways.)

Like a lot of book series, I was a little relieved when this one was over. Not because it got boring, but because it was so emotionally intense that I was mentally exhausted. I apologize for the adverb explosion in that sentence. Stephen King would be writhing.

The quality of writing shown in all three of these books deserves a shout-out. I don't know that I can describe what good writing is, but I certainly know BAD writing when I see it. And these three books were all high-quality writing. There were a couple of issues where there was lack of agreement with the pronouns "everyone" and "anyone," but almost no one gets those right, so I cut it some slack in that department. (I'm pretty sure I would be a bitch of an editor. Those of you who just mentally edited out the "of an editor" part can go stand in the corner. Thank you.)

Disturbing as some of the themes were, particularly for something characterized as "young adult literature," I think Collins covered them very well. There were realistic consequences of rebellion, revolution, and war, even while it was painful to see them happen to characters we had grown to know and love. Thinking again of the label "young adult literature," the Mama Bear in me wanted to pretend that young people don't need to know the intricacies and the horrors of war. But of course that is the whole point, that young people need to understand there are tough decisions and things don't always work out the way they're planned, even when they are carried out with the very best of intentions.

There was no way the ending could be a truly happy one for Katniss, and I think Collins chose as good an ending as she could and still be true to the books' themes. These books definitely won't leave you feeling good, but they certainly will make you feel.