Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hovering between five stars and no stars at all. After listening to unabridged audio versions of the three books of the Hunger Games trilogy I feel at once impressed and depressed. Battered into not knowing whether I can honestly use the star equivalent of liked, at the same time as being aware that "amazing" is akin to what I felt about some of it. The series ends in what seemed to me like relentless, unremitting grimness and horror. For a book I believed to be for young adults, it doesn't pull many punches and the moral dilemmas are also grown up, not to say topical. I have always been aware that I am not the target audience, but in fact the resolution of the romance plot was far less painful than I was expecting and for me paled in significance beside other momentous events.

I don't want to give away any spoilers as there are several twists, some of which I saw coming and at least one of which was like Ms. Collins saying brightly "What's that over there" and then kneeing me in the groin. These are books I won't forget in a hurry and I regret dismissing them and the spin-off film earlier, when I somehow lumped them in with the Twilight phenomena. I should probably point out again that I didn't read these books but listened to them. The reader, Carolyn McCormick, may well have coloured my opinion to some degree. I believe she did an excellent job however, differentiating clearly between different voices and even attempting a song. There were a couple of times when I felt errors of stress may have slipped through - Head doctor where the context implied head doctor for example - but in the main it was an excellent performance I thought, and well-matched to the material. In conclusion I will say bravo to her and the author...and I'm glad I don't have to go through that again...

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