Mockingjay
Suzanne Collins, 2010
★ 4.13 from 3.9m ratings on Goodreads
The final Hunger Games volume: the girl who survived the state's televised death match is now the face of a war she never wanted to lead. The prose is dramatic and intense, carrying a heavy sense of dread and the gritty reality of a civil war.
Feels like grief, dread and defiance. About war, freedom and power.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy stories about the weight of revolution and the trauma of state-sanctioned violence. Be aware that some readers found the bleakness and the protagonist's passivity, along with the romance, to be disappointing.
Why read it
This book gives you a final look at a world fractured by war, forcing you to question what it means to be human.
A page from the book
What it costs to stop believing your own species deserves to survive.
I no longer feel any allegiance to these monsters called human beings, despite being one myself. I think that Peeta was onto something about us destroying one another and letting some decent species take over. Because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences. What readers say
Many readers found the finale emotionally devastating and a fittingly dark close, praising its treatment of war, trauma, and loss. Others were disappointed by the bleakness, uneven pacing, and the protagonist’s passivity, with the romance dividing them.
Suzanne Collins.Before novels, Collins spent the 1990s writing for children's television, including Nickelodeon's Clarissa Explains It All, where she was head writer.
Books that feel like this
More by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins, 2008
In a dystopian America, survival means a dangerous dance between rebellion and the crushing power of a totalitarian Capitol.
Sunrise on the Reaping
Suzanne Collins, 2025
Before he was District 12's ruined victor, Haymitch Abernathy was a boy with a girl, a family, and a reaping. The 50th Hunger Games, from the inside.
The Hunger Games Trilogy (Hunger Games / Catching Fire / Mockingjay)
Suzanne Collins, 2008
A girl volunteers for a televised death match to save her sister, then quietly turns the cameras into a weapon.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is Mockingjay for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy stories about the weight of revolution and the trauma of state-sanctioned violence. Be aware that some readers found the bleakness and the protagonist's passivity, along with the romance, to be disappointing.
- What is Mockingjay like?
- The prose is dramatic and intense, carrying a heavy sense of dread and the gritty reality of a civil war. Feels like grief, dread and defiance. About war, freedom and power.
- What should I read after Mockingjay?
- If you liked Mockingjay, try Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J. K. Rowling), Morning Star (Pierce Brown) and Eclipse (Stephenie Meyer).
A taste of the feed
How much changes when a choice stops being made for you?
It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew — and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents — that there was all the difference in the world.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince · J. K. Rowling
Everything is cracked except the moments that make it worth it.
I breathe in the full scent of her. If it ends tomorrow or in eighty years, I could breathe her for the rest of my life. But I want more. I need more. I tilt her slender jaw up with my hand so that she’s looking at me. I was going to say something important. Something memorable. But I’ve forgotten it in her eyes. That gulf that divided us is still there, filled with questions and recrimination and guilt, but that’s only part of love, part of being human. Everything is cracked, everything is stained except the fragile moments that hang crystalline in time and make life worth living.
Morning Star · Pierce Brown
A condemned man explains why hell is really a kindness.
I tried to imagine telling my parents that I was getting married this summer. Telling Angela and Ben. I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of the words to say. It would be easier to tell them I was becoming a vampire.
Eclipse · Stephenie Meyer
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