Krishna
This is Installment Three in the hugely popular Hunger Games Trilogy. See our review for the first book Hunger Games, and the second book Catching Fire earlier.
Katniss agrees to become a symbol of the revolution after visiting her own bombed out district 12. She is taken to district 8, the hospital, where she sees the effect she has on others but witnesses ruthless bombing raids by President Snow of the Capitol. In the meanwhile, the resistance movement is headed by Coin, who seems not too friendly with Katniss when she is rescued and arrives at District 13.
She is relieved that Peeta, who was not rescued at the end of the previous book into District 13 is alive but wonders why he seems to be “supporting” the Capitol.
Peeta warns them in time of the bombing raid on thirteen itself, and they go underground in the bunkers. Peeta is rescued but has been brainwashed with tracker jack bee venom to believe that Katniss is a mortal enemy.
Katniss is in District 2 after it is subdued by the rebels and is shot. She recovers, and then gets friendly with her previous enemy Johanna. Peeta is left to mingle with guards always with him.
Finnick marries Annie and is happy. Then they are all sent to District 2 and then to the Capitol with Coin’s secret plan for Peeta to murder Katniss so that she will not be a threat when Snow is killed and Coin herself wants to get elected president. Nice twist.
In a Capitol war in chaos, Katniss leads a team to assassinate Snow, loses a lot of people to mutts and hides with a designer who has a cat face and a tail.
When she reaches President’s palace she finds it guarded by children and parachutes descend which the kids take for toys. The twists run till the very end, and the ending is a bit surprising.
Suzanne Collins likes to keep us hanging with a triangle all through – Peeta, Gale, Katniss and since this is written for teeny-boppers, like Archie, there is no resolution until the very end.
But I will tell you one thing. Many people have said that the Book Three is a lot weaker than the first two and one person even said that this is true of all of Suzanne Collin’s book series. “She does not know how to finish stories” was the verdict of this person. But I think differently, at least about this series, which is the only one I have read. I think it stands on its own and the story moves to a very logical end with ironies of power struggle in the resistance movement whose very raison d’etre is to dismantle the autocratic power of President Snow.
A plausible end to the series. It is still juvenile, like the first two books and is aimed at young adults rather than serious readers, but it does what it aims to do well.
Let us say a 5/10
– – Krishna