Have you Met Sally

Wow. What a novel. The amount of content that was able to be put into one novel is insane to me. It contained so much emotion and mania that I felt surprised at the character progression. I’m not sure if the novel would be ruined by being longer to show more emotion. But it showed a lot of realism during the war/battles with not being able to properly mourn your friends or allies but even some of the political parts were felt a little too hard. But I will agree to what I’ve seen people say online about how fast the characters were able to get over Finnick’s death specifically. The fact that he was a major character just to be emotionlessly killed off was upsetting.

The intensity of the war and how quickly everyone had to keep moving kept the novel at such a fast pace it was easy to read through it. Although not being able to mourn over important and loved characters was aching, I did enjoy how much action was able to be packed in there. In the first half of the novel, the shock at how low lying District 13 was almost off-putting at some parts. The concept of some people knowing and being in contact with a District that is known not to exist and just suddenly up and moving there caught me off guard. Especially with how much visibility they gave themselves right away after the Games. I didn’t expect District 13 to be bringing soldiers through different districts right away and the Capital to just be okay with it.

I do finally stand with Peeta over Gale, however. Gale’s true character developed more in Catching Fire but it really showed in Mockingjay. At first it was cute, but his actions did not age well. At least he kind of came to terms with the fact that he will never have Katniss in the way that he wanted but still protected her to the end. I’m more surprised honestly at how fast Peeta recovered. Especially while facing so much trauma of being in the Capitol and having so many flashbacks before everyone split up. Maybe he was being strong for Katniss. Part of me wanted for Katniss to find someone else other than Peeta or Gale. Both of them had fought for her in different ways and left her in emotional distress in different ways that I honestly can’t enjoy either of them ending up with her. It almost feels as though she is trapped with the people she has endured the most trauma with and is staying out of safely instead of love in its entirety. Maybe it could have been a nice alternative ending to have her end up alone…

As a whole, the distressed and insane Katniss was an interesting character to read. The three years of back to back traumatic activities left such a hard mark on her and I almost expected it to last longer. The whole Katniss and Peeta helping-each-other-become-sane trope works a little too well. Especially with Katniss eventually giving in to having kids. That one kind of lost me. I wish that the Epilogue had more of how Panem adapted to its new life. A large part of Katniss’s character that stood out to me was the fact that she didn’t want kids. I just don’t want to insinuate the whole concept of women need to have kids whether they want to or not. I mean, yes, she is just a character and there are so many non-written years where she could have changed her mind but still. The epilogue held so much potential to create such a beautiful new world that could call for a spin off.

I do wish some of the other characters got an ending. If Katniss still kept in touch with her mother or Gale or Haymitch. It would have been nice to see how they all ended up after being separated. The separations makes everyone seem so disconnected after experiencing so much trauma and grief as a group. But the characters are all just dropped into their respective lives like nothing ever happened. Or is that the reality of combat experiences? I’m not sure if I’ll ever know. Just that so many people had come out of this war after trying to put everything aside to keep Katniss alive, and the aftermath of the same war had the exact same outcome. But I’m not sure that any actual ending to this series would be able to be satisfying because of how much everyone has gone through.

I’m personally sad that I couldn’t bring myself to write anything about Catching Fire. I was too eager to move onto Mockingjay, to find out what happened to all of the characters that I never really sat down with myself to think the book over. I’ve now moved on to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes so really we can only hope that it lives up to the hype that the movie held and that any future book will maintain the lore standards that has been written thus far. I’m honestly preparing myself quite well for the next Hunger Games book that’s coming out next year, let’s just hope I remember all of this.

xo Sally 🙂