The Girl Who Was on Fire - Booster Pack by Leah Wilson

Author:Leah Wilson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pop Culture
ISBN: 9781936661602
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.
Published: 2012-01-04T16:00:00+00:00

No, the Book Doesn’t Suck—It’s a Bold, Artistically Risky Work with a Classic Theme

We all agree that Mockingjay is very different than The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. The question is why.

The answer is: because Collins took a bold, artistic risk. We expected a rousing conclusion to an action-oriented trilogy; instead, we got a moral parable and moody, introspective character study.

The book starts from a simple premise: What would really happen if Katniss had actually gone through all those events? The result would be very different than in the fantasy worlds of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or even Harry Potter. The psychological consequences would be far more profound.

When you look at the book this way, a lot of the “criticisms” I cited above seem like very deliberate choices on the part of the author.

Why isn’t Katniss in the room when Peeta is being deprogrammed? Because he’d claw her eyes out! He’s been programmed to hate her, after all.

Why isn’t she the one who figures out a way to reach him? That has to do with the whole point of the books: Katniss is powerless in the grip of forces beyond her control. She may have outwitted Snow and the Capitol in The Hunger Games and Catching Fire (with a little help from allies), but her luck has finally run out.

Why does so much of the story revolve around her, and why do so many of the characters obsess over her? Here Collins is definitely making an ironic point: the power of the Mockingjay is an illusion; Katniss is a propaganda figure to be manipulated by both sides. The only real power she has is the power we all have: the power of the individual.

Does Katniss have to spend the first two-thirds of the book being thwarted at every turn? Damn straight. First, that’s the only way to break the pattern of the first two books and truly emphasize to the reader just how powerless she is—that this time there is no way out, no last-minute reprieve.

Second, Katniss herself needs to come to terms with the true hollowness of her status as the Mockingjay. She’s important in name only. But this gradual realization leads directly to the book’s single most important event: her decision to kill Coin instead of Snow.

The Mockingjay may be a dead end, but the individual, acting with a good heart at a key moment, can still change the world.

Is the book too “small,” too claustrophobic? Well, it’s intimate, but that’s not the same thing as small. We do spend much of the book inside Katniss’ head, but that’s only because the Hunger Games have pushed her deeper and deeper into herself.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? You bet!

In chapter twenty-three, Katniss overhears a conversation between Peeta and Gale, in which Gale speaks about the choice she’ll make between the two of them: “Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can’t survive without,” he says.

“There’s not the least indication that love, or desire, or even compatibility will sway me,” Katniss tells us, thinking on this in the next chapter.

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