#29 and #30: Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

I have no read the entire Hunger Games trilogy and am so glad that I did not blog until the very end.  Had I done so sooner with these 2 books, I may have turned some of you away with words of displeasure.  The ending was superb and the trilogy was amazing!  My husband has read the first two and loved them, so I know it's not just me liking them--they are just good books.

Catching Fire is the second book in the series and it does a good job of picking up where the first finishes.  The characters continued to be so real in my head.  I could imagine their every move and hung on their every word.  I was shocked at the main event in this book, as was Rob, but read on in disbelief at what was happening.  The ending tied things up nicely, but since I knew there was another book I knew the story wasn't over. 

Mockingjay was A LOT harder for me to read.  There was too much war, too much fighting, and too much blood and death.  So much that I suddenly began to have a hard time visualizing scenes in my head, had to re-read sections of the book, and when bookmarking a page and coming back to it later, didn't remember reading what I had just read.  But, because I rarely put down a book without finishing it, I plugged on and am so glad that I did.  During my lunchtime today, I read the last 20 pages and found myself in tears as the book ended. 

Books like these (Uncle Tom's Cabin is another that comes to mind) make me yearn for my english teachers from high school and college, teachers who are so skilled at noticing the subtle nuances from writers that I sometimes pick up on but sometimes miss.  I wondered at the ending about the names of some of the characters: Coin, Snow and how their names represented their character.  Coin, who seemed to be out for power and Snow, who we thought was not pure at all but who may have been all along.  Character names are only a part of the literary analysis of these books that must be so rich and so deep if you only went back and looked harder. 

You can, however, read all 3 books without a skilled english teacher's eye and still enjoy them for what they teach us about life, love, and real genuine happiness.  Don't take freedom for granted.  Don't be afraid to fight for what you believe in.  Don't let a day go by when you don't let your family know how much you love them.  Life can change in an instant.  Don't be caught unaware.