Mockingjay

I began waiting for Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins, as soon as I finished Catching Fire, which I read immediately after reading Hunger Games. You can read my review of the first two books in this YA series here and here.
I stayed up until 4 a.m. reading, needing to see how Katniss was going to teach the Capitol a lesson. To see who would survive. To see the heart-stopping finish and declaration of a new day...
I knew characters would die.
I knew love would be defined.
I knew things would get violent.
The first two books taught me that. My expectations were in line with what had already been told. I wanted to be engulfed in flames and emerge triumphant.

I felt on the verge of that throughout the entire book. On the verge of ignition. I felt the story leading me, twisting, guessing, fulfilling its promises... despite the glaring amount of narrative.

At this point in the review, I originally aired opinions with spoilers galore. I've reluctantly chosen to save those for later, after more of you have had time to read it. I will just say that I thought some of it was brilliant, and some of it was a let-down, especially concerning the narrative of almost the entire last chapter. I couldn't help but feel that Collins had written a full-blown ending, and then had to rein it in for word count. Severely. On the verge of ignition, but not ignited.

But I did really like the last few lines before the epilogue. They brought me back to the beginning, which is a good thing, in my opinion. After all, the jaw-dropping roller-coaster of unbelievable reality that was Hunger Games made the reader ask, "Real? Or not real?"

Engulfed.