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themadpokerThe nice thing about reading reviews is that they have really boosted my Mockingjay love. =DDD Because I’ll admit when I first finished the book I was kind of like ‘oh. That’s it?’ There was a spark missing for me that I had for The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. Intellectually there was stuff I could see was good – Peeta coming back hijacked (which wasn’t actually all that surprising to me, possibly because I watched the first two episodes of Dark Angel season 2 a few days back and they did a similar thing? I expect my evil dystopian leaders to kidnap lovers and somehow make one of them try to kill the other, it’s just what they do), and she was ramping up the tension with all the cliffhanger endings to each chapter. But somehow I wasn’t quite feeling it. There were bits I liked – Katniss talking to Finnick! Katniss talking to Johanna! Katniss HAVING NON-ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS, seriously the best thing. And Finnick at all times obviously (Does he dazzle distract you? =D) – but I just wasn’t getting the totally entranced immersed experience I had with the first two. So I walked out of the bookstore feeling mildly disappointed.
But reading reviews changed that! For example every single one that dissed Katniss got my hackles up (see post yesterday) and consequently made me more defensive about the book. No shush, I changed my mind, it’s actually great and you should all be quiet. >( It was like blah blah blah she was selfish blah blah blah she didn’t make a choice blah blah blah she was so passive and fail. And apparently I am very intolerant of other’s people issues when they don’t match mine? Because no, SURVIVOR, shut up and yes she did, I still don’t get why anyone actually thought Gale had a chance, I mean just look at how much page time he got versus Peeta and also how Katniss basically went kind of crazy knowing Peeta was being tortured because of her and HG and CF definitely had hints of emerging ~feelings~. I seriously don’t know what you want, a written statement to the effect of ‘Gale is my friend, Peeta is my boyfriend’? And she was traumatized, have you all forgotten she’s SEVENTEEN? Katniss Everdeen was not meant to be the supreme badass, Katniss Everdeen is a survivor who wanted to protect her loved ones and all her actions in the first two books pointed to that.
-takes deep breath- ANYWAYS. I am just saying, every negative review bumped up Mockingjay much much higher in my estimation. But also the positive ones! Because people pointed out stuff that I hadn’t focused on – the role of music in Katniss’ healing for one – and got me thinking a little more critically about the book and resolving some of my issues? Like I didn’t like the epilogue all that much (HP Syndrome!) but symbolically it works! Katniss didn’t want children because they could be taken to the Hunger Games and she lived in a world that sacrificed its kids which was really not okay except now things are better so as a shortcut to show things have improved it fits with the themes. I still don’t really like it but I’m okay with it. And you know, I can always hold onto Graceling’s Katsa as an example of a YA heroine who didn’t want kids and whose choice was treated as valid and never changed throughout the narrative.
Plus as a trope I love broken people who make each other a little better just by being together and hello, Katniss and Peeta. I mean it would have been nice to actually see more of that but hey, that’s what fanfiction’s for. There’s only so much room in a book for that kind of exploration, particularly one as heavily focused on the action and war as Mockingjay was.
Also, okay I just need to get this out of my system but to everyone who said something along the lines of ‘omg Katniss voting for another Hunger Games was so out of character’, hello, she was LYING. >((((( Remember? Plan to kill President Coin? Required some degree of trust there so she could have that arrow? What do you think her chances would have been of actually getting to do that if she’d voted no, huh?
-should probably have not started reading the reactions on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
themockingjay last night-
Something tells me this is not going to be the last post I put up on Mockingjay. >_> More blabbery on the media and war and cycles of violence, coming soon to an lj near you!
But reading reviews changed that! For example every single one that dissed Katniss got my hackles up (see post yesterday) and consequently made me more defensive about the book. No shush, I changed my mind, it’s actually great and you should all be quiet. >( It was like blah blah blah she was selfish blah blah blah she didn’t make a choice blah blah blah she was so passive and fail. And apparently I am very intolerant of other’s people issues when they don’t match mine? Because no, SURVIVOR, shut up and yes she did, I still don’t get why anyone actually thought Gale had a chance, I mean just look at how much page time he got versus Peeta and also how Katniss basically went kind of crazy knowing Peeta was being tortured because of her and HG and CF definitely had hints of emerging ~feelings~. I seriously don’t know what you want, a written statement to the effect of ‘Gale is my friend, Peeta is my boyfriend’? And she was traumatized, have you all forgotten she’s SEVENTEEN? Katniss Everdeen was not meant to be the supreme badass, Katniss Everdeen is a survivor who wanted to protect her loved ones and all her actions in the first two books pointed to that.
-takes deep breath- ANYWAYS. I am just saying, every negative review bumped up Mockingjay much much higher in my estimation. But also the positive ones! Because people pointed out stuff that I hadn’t focused on – the role of music in Katniss’ healing for one – and got me thinking a little more critically about the book and resolving some of my issues? Like I didn’t like the epilogue all that much (HP Syndrome!) but symbolically it works! Katniss didn’t want children because they could be taken to the Hunger Games and she lived in a world that sacrificed its kids which was really not okay except now things are better so as a shortcut to show things have improved it fits with the themes. I still don’t really like it but I’m okay with it. And you know, I can always hold onto Graceling’s Katsa as an example of a YA heroine who didn’t want kids and whose choice was treated as valid and never changed throughout the narrative.
Plus as a trope I love broken people who make each other a little better just by being together and hello, Katniss and Peeta. I mean it would have been nice to actually see more of that but hey, that’s what fanfiction’s for. There’s only so much room in a book for that kind of exploration, particularly one as heavily focused on the action and war as Mockingjay was.
Also, okay I just need to get this out of my system but to everyone who said something along the lines of ‘omg Katniss voting for another Hunger Games was so out of character’, hello, she was LYING. >((((( Remember? Plan to kill President Coin? Required some degree of trust there so she could have that arrow? What do you think her chances would have been of actually getting to do that if she’d voted no, huh?
-should probably have not started reading the reactions on
themockingjay last night-Something tells me this is not going to be the last post I put up on Mockingjay. >_> More blabbery on the media and war and cycles of violence, coming soon to an lj near you!
