I'm reading Mockingjay. I can tell you right now: I won't be finishing this within twenty four hours. With how it's making me feel, I'm not even certain I will be able to bring myself to finish it at all. I'll do my best -- I need to if I want to review it. I definitely have stuff to say...
It's not that it's poorly paced or written. Rather, Mockingjay is such a haunting portrayal of self-loathing, guilt and pain (this far, at least...) that I feel like crying when I attempt to keep going forward. Katniss is broken, Peeta is not with her and people want to use her for a "great and noble purpose" when it seems to me that she'd just as soon roll over and die.
I understand what Collins is doing here. I get that war is bad and that when people are forced to do terrible things it is likely that doing those terrible things will in turn do terrible things to their psyche. But I know better then to read stuff like this; I know how I react to it. Regardless of what happens to Katniss and Peeta, the best that can be hoped for is a bittersweet ending (a prediction here, obviously, as I'm not finished yet) ... because when someone is emotionally scarred to the point where their soul is broken, there's not much that can be done for them.
To anyone thinking of reading The Hunger Games ... I strongly advise you to decide from word go if you can handle pain. If you read the first book on it's own its alright. If you read all three I'm sure that it will all end up as Collins intended. But Catching Fire does not offer an ending that can be considered "the end". If you read past the first book you will need to either be prepared to face down Mockingjay or you will need to pretend you didn't read Catching Fire. Don't say I didn't warn you. (I know people warned me -- and part of me wishes I had listened.)
