Book Review : Mockingjay (The Hunger Games Trilogy Book #3)

Asslamualaikum...

Hi all......
WOw! it seems that I just cant stop with all the book review thing lol.... Well, when it comes to this book, i just cannnot NOT review it... it really has been awhile since I last felt this kind of adrenaline when it comes to reading a book.. You have this some of adrenaline wanting to not stop reading it because you are desperate to know WHAT HAPPENS NEXT???!! and then when you realize that you have been reading for quite awhile and only a few chapters left until it ends at that point you realize that you dont what everything to end.... you know how that feels? IT FEELS TERRIBLE!!...Because I LOVE this book SOOOOOO MUCHHHHH!!!... and that is how much I LOVEEEEEEEEEE it.....

::sobbing that the whole book has come to an end:: huhu...

Well lets go through the synopsis before I do the review on the book #3.. MOCKINGJAY....


Synopsis

As the novel opens, Katniss, Finnick & Beetee was saved by Haymich & Plutarch by a hovercraft from the 75th Hunger Game's arena. They and hundreds of other refugees and revolutionaries have been taken in by the citizens of District 13. While the other survivors from the 75th Hunger Game, Peeta, Johanna Mason & Enobaria was captured by The Capitol. The rumors were true, but District 13 is both more and less than anything she could have envisioned. While safety is a fluid concept in Katniss's experience, she is what passes for safe at the moment. Still, she is tortured by thoughts of Peeta, being held prisoner in the Capitol. And she is tortured by too many ghosts. We're introduced to a somewhat more fragile Katniss in this novel, and she is not the only character in a somewhat diminished state. The events unfolding around them, as well as those of the past few years, have taken a heavy toll. Both Johanna & Peeta was tortured by President Snow in order to get the details behind what the rebels have been planning. As a result, when the rebels managed to rescue Peeta and Johanna from The Capitol, both were tragically damaged mentally. Peeta was poisoned by tracker-jackers venom into thinking Katniss was a Mutt (Mutation) designed by Capitol to destroy district 12. So everytime he sees Katniss, he wanted to finish her. While Johanna was having Hydrophobia because while being captured by the capitol, they tortured her by trying to drown her.

As the book continues further, the rebels prepare for an invasion into the Capitol. It is in this preparatory segment that the past victors shine the brightest. Finnick and Johanna become of vital importance, Finnick in showing in the first half of the novel his love for Annie (and despondence at her capture along with Peeta), then later, after she is rescued and they are married, they become the Remus Lupin and Tonks (Harry Potter) of yet another trilogy. Every book has the couple who shows amid war and civil unrest the promise of happiness, and the best writers make us love them so dearly. Just as with Lupin, the ending, however, hurts. It is the kind of plot twist you cannot overlook--nobody, regardless of the side they take in a war, wants a child to grow up alone (which is, in my opinion, one of the most haunting moments in all of Harry Potter...seeing Harry's beginning echoed with the child of Remus and Tonks). Finnick will stay firmly in your memory after you close this book, and so will Johanna, but for an entirely different reason. She had the cell next to Peeta's in the Capitol, but unlike Peeta, who still cannot separate reality from fiction due to the venom, she remembers everything. She becomes a symbol of the Capitol's cruelty. Her strength and abrasiveness from Book 2 have been replaced with cowering at the sight of rain and an inability to bathe, due to the Capitol's technique of torturing her with water.

The final chapters will rip you apart. The deaths pile up, and we have to watch and feel with Katniss as the perils of war take their toll. Some deaths you cannot help but react-- we have grown to love some of these people so dearly-- but others, you may simply sigh or groan because it was yet another life that could not be avoided. While the battle between Presidents Coin and Snow heat up and the rebels and Capitol use increasingly underhanded tactics, Katniss simply attempts to keep her own ground force alive. It is reminiscent of the first two Hunger Games, and it takes her hunting skill combined with every ounce of her resourcefulness from years of starvation to preserve the lives of any in her unit. She still manages to keep a small amount alive, and she gets them to the Capitol lawn, intending to kill President Snow.

SPOILERS ALERT!!!!

The ending will hurt. I screamed as I visualized it- Prim, running across the lawn in full medic attire, one moment holding on the remainder of a fatally injured child, the next, being blown up herself. It was horrific. From that point, I could completely understand Katniss losing all will to live. She has lost the one thing she swore to protect, the only reason she ever entered the Hunger Games in the first place. The war has truly destroyed the most beautiful and innocent of things--Prim, who only wanted to be a doctor and help others.

On the day of President Snow's execution, Katniss kills President Coin with the arrow that was meant for Snow's execution. Katniss tries to commit suicide when the guards come for her, but Peeta stops her. When Katniss tells him to let go, Peeta says he can't. He implies later that he too went mad after Coin's death and that Aurelius, Katniss's mental doctor, was treating him too. He returns to District Twelve months after Katniss and Haymitch, where he plants several evening primroses along the house in honor of Katniss's dead sister, Prim. When she starts to write a book about their experiences during the Hunger Games, along with things she is unwilling to forget about it, Peeta and Haymitch join her. Peeta draws the victims if they were not able to find a picture of them. Peeta still has some "episodes" where the hijacking will try to take over again: he is mentioned clenching onto the back of a chair until it passed. Otherwise, he displays signs that he has returned to his former self. Katniss and Peeta slowly find each other again. Peeta comforts her when Katniss has nightmares. Katniss believes that she has finally found the once-lost feeling Peeta stirs inside of her, that she needs Peeta to survive because he symbolizes hope and rebirth rather than destruction (Gale). They play the game of Real or Not Real one more time: Peeta asks, "You love me, real or not real." Katniss answers, "Real."

In the epilogue, the pair are still togehter and have two children. Though it took fifteen years of convincing from Peeta, they have a girl with her mother's dark hair and her father's blue eyes, and a boy with his father's blond hair and his mother's gray eyes. Katniss feels hesitant to tell her children, but Peeta assures that it will be okay, because they have each other. So, one day, they will tell their children of the Hunger Games, share the book Haymitch, Peeta, and Katniss compiled together, explain Katniss' hysterical episodes during the night, and inform them of the graveyard they happily play above everyday. The graveyard is the burial site for the dead former-residents of District 12.

The Review

This was a brilliant conclusion to the trilogy. I can only compare it to "Harry Potter" - and that is extremely high praise, indeed.

When I first closed the book last night, I felt shattered, empty, and drained.

In this third book, right from the start Katniss was badly hurt... not really physically but more emotionally because of Peeta. we see how badly she wanted to protect the bread boy but she failed and even blame Haymich for not keeping his promise with her that they both would try to keep Peeta alive through out the game. The emotional roller coaster continues when the rebels managed to save Peeta from the Capitol and when Katniss was reaching for him the first thing he did was strangle her intending to kill. It was soo heart breaking not just for Katniss but also to the readers. I love how Suzanne Collins brilliantly just twist the plot and we readers didnt even see that coming. Especially not from Peeta.

And then there is Prim. The one person that Katniss loved sooo much dearly. Died... At first I cannot accept the fact that Primrose Everdeen dies in the final book. Why, oh why did Collins killed one of the main characters especially when Primrose was the sole reason as to why Katniss sacrifice herself into taking Prim's place in the 74th Hunger Game (Book #1). But then when I read how Katniss was miserable after that and how much she was affected by Prim's death, I knew that it was inevitable. It was another climax in the book.

So I think the ending was perfect, it's a bittersweet ending, in a way you are happy Katniss has the love of her life, but at the same time you realize that war scared her, and even though she's happy (she says so herself), she'll never forget what she went through, and the people she lost, so at the end of the book, there's no smile in your face, it's just another reminder that life is not perfect, there are ups and downs, and both define the way you live. So for the first time in my life, I enjoyed an epilogue, not only I enjoyed it, it was perfect.

A perfect ending for a great series.

Book Review : I Am Number Four

Hi all....

Again here I am with another book review...... I cant seem to stop reading these YA (Young-Adult) novels.... you know I havent even been spending much time online surfing the web or downloading Korean dramas or variety shows because I cant stop reading..... sometimes when I realize just a couple of chapters left before I finished the book I'd feel like I dont want to keep reading because I was afraid Id finish reading the book and then dont know what to read next but yet I need to keep reading until finish coz i need to know what happens next hahah... its my love-hate relationship with reading I guess...especially when it comes to the hunger games trilogy....

Well anyway, in this entry im not going to review the hunger games but im going to do a review on I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore... In the previous entry I wrote that I had order the hunger games book 1 & 3 online at mph..well while waiting for the books to arrive I was soo bored to death and dont know what to do so I went to the Popular book store to get what I can read while waiting for the books from mph to arrive and I bought this book to keep me busy...for awhile... well I grab the book judging that I read a few reviews from hunger games fan that suggest me to read it and also because it was another novel-adapted-into-a-movie novel so I thought owhh what the heck... it must be good also the summary on the back of the book grabbed me to read it.... you know what they say, Dont Judge the Book by its Cover.. or in the case of 'I Am Number Four', Dont Judge A Book by its novel-adapted-into-a-movie title on the cover :P lol.....

Well Anyway, before I comment on the writing style of Pittacus Lore and the whole story line and plot, I'll make a brief summary on the book...


Summary
The high stakes premise goes like this: Nine alien children have fled their annihilated homeworld of Lorien and have sought refuge on Earth. Having scattered to the winds, they are being hunted down, one by one, by a separate and malevolent extraterrestrial race from a dying planet. Thanks to a quasi-mystical protective charm placed on the Nine, they can only be killed in order (although, my bet is that Number One doesn't regard this charm as all that "protective"). As the book opens, three of the Nine have already been tracked down and murdered. So we come to Number Four.

His name used to be Daniel Jones. It used to be something else before that, and then something else before that, and so on. Ten years on Earth, ten years of hiding and staying always on the move and staying safe and alive... this is the life of Number Four and his guardian and mentor whose name is Henri (oddly, Henri's alien accent sounds very much like a French accent). Number Four has just collected a new scar circling his right ankle, this an indicator that another of the Nine has been recently slain. Three scarred rings around his ankle, and so Number Four knows he's next. And it's time to pack up the bags again, time again to get the eff out of Dodge.

Henri and Number Four - or "John Smith," his new assumed name - have always gravitated to tiny towns, conjecturing that their hunters would stick out more like sore thumbs in tiny towns. They end up in Paradise, Ohio. For John it's another try at blending in in school but without making friends, because no one can be trusted. Except that it's a little different this time. John Smith befriends a geeky kid who is a science-fiction enthusiast. He adopts a stray mutt named Bernie Kosar (and Bernie Kosar, by the way, is easily the book's breakout character). And John Smith also meets a girl, Sarah. So much for staying on one's guard.


The Review
I dont know whats the hype for the movie since I havent watch the movie yet but this book is badly written.... I rolled my eyes so many times at this book. There are no surprises in this book. There is no descriptive language, the characters are completely shallow and unlikable. John has no personality, Sarah REALLY has no personality (besides liking photography and being pretty). Their whole relationship is ridiculous. It pretty much consists of "You look so pretty", "I missed you", "Hey beautiful", and them kissing eachother. Again, me rolling my eyes at all this. Basically there is nothing in this book that will keep your interest or make you want to read more. The only character that was semi-interesting was maybe Sam. I don't know why people like this book. Actually I'm not even sure who the target audience for this book is. The writing is so poor and unemotional that I would guess it was for elementary age children if it wasn't for the swearing that Henri does. All the fight scenes at the end were repetitive and annoying and I ended up skimming a lot of it just so I could find out what happens ultimately. Although, at that point I just wanted to be done with the book and it was holding very little of my interest anymore. The part where the dog first shows up- it was obvious something was different about the dog, but the characters never even question how he can move so fast from one place to another? How dumb is John? He knows he has aliens after him, trying to kill him and yet he doesn't even notice the things around him. He is very very hard to like as a main character. Oh, and the part with the house fire? I stopped reading at that point and seriously considered giving up on the book.
But I kept on reading anyway not because of John but because I was curios of Bernie Kosar, the dog and the remaining aliens (number 5,6,7,8 & 9).. by the end of the book I was a bit relief with a few stories on the remaining aliens and also of number 6 comes into rescue.. she was as interesting to me as Bernie Kosar and Sam... thru the middle of the book John was trained by Henri and he learns and had flashes of his past memory in Lorien, there were no peaking event at all its boring. The end battle was interminable and characters kept getting death dealing blows and going on to fight. Half the time I was not clear about what was going on.

Overall this book to me seems like a badly written book resulting from lazy writing and no research at all on the details of the whole storyline. I must say there is a good idea behind the whole thing but it was just badly executed.