Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Title: Mockingjay

Author: Suzanne Collins

The Final Book of The Hunger Games Series

Ratings Explanation

Violence:  While walking in the meadow in District 12, Katniss stumbles into a rock, only to discover it is a skull.  She also discovers various states of decomposed bodies throughout District 12.  District 12 has been fire bombed to near extinction.  Katniss is tormented with images of Peeta being tortured, drowned, burned, lacerated, shocked, maimed and beaten by the Capitol, trying to extol information from him.  Katniss wonders whom she is breathing in, among the ashes in District 12.  She remembers Gale’s whipping while in the stocks.  Katniss grapples with the deaths her actions have caused;  the innocents in the arena,  Cinna, the rebels in the districts, District 12, the old man shot in District 11.  Katniss wonders what Buttercup the cat has been feeding on, mice or human remains.  Bonnie and Twill, District 8 Refugees, probably died in the woods trying to reach District 13.  Katniss remembers the hourly promise of a new horror in the Quarter Quell Games.  Peeta says, “To murder innocent people, it costs everything you are.”  Katniss discovers her prep team held in shackles in a dungeon in District 13, for stealing a piece of bread.  Beetee designs a special hunting bow for Katniss, a bow for hunting people, not animals.  The Capitol bombs a hospital, killing everyone within.  Gale accidentally breaks Boggs’ nose.  Katniss sings “The Hanging Tree” song, the singer of the song is a dead murderer, who sings for his lover to join him in death.  While speaking on camera to the nation, Peeta is given a serious blow, he then cries in pain as his blood splatters the tiles.  District 13 is bombed.  Secret covers are blown, and people are sacrificed to rescue Peeta and Annie.  President Snow poisoned and killed anyone who posed a threat to him.  Snow would drink from the poisoned cup himself to deflect suspicion.  However,the antidotes didn’t always work.  He wore roses to cover the scent of blood from the mouth sores that never healed.  Peeta is rescued, and tries to choke Katniss to death.  The rebels propose a death trap for “The Nut”, an impenetrable Capitol holdout.  The Nut is blown up as a host of avalanches begin and trap people inside the mountain.  Katniss is haunted by the memory of  her father’s death.  Katniss is shot by a wounded young man.  Peeta and Johanna are friends because they had adjoining cells in the Capitol, so they were very familiar with one another’s screams.  Katniss and the rebel forces train in war games.  Soldier Leeg 2 hits a mislabeled pod, which shoots out a sunburst of metal darts.  One finds her brain and she dies immediately.  Peeta recounts watching Darius and Lavinia, the Avoxes, being tortured to death.  Lavinius was lucky, they used too much voltage and her heart stopped right off.  Darius took days to die, as they beat him and cut off parts.  He couldn’t speak, he just made these horrible animal sounds.  Boggs’ legs are blown off.  Boggs’ warm flesh covers “The Holo”.  They attempt to tourniquet the stump, but the blood soaks through too rapidly.  Boggs dies.  Mitchell is encased in a net filled with barbs.  He is instantly bloodied and dies.  Pollux, an Avox dreads going down into the tunnels underneath the city.  He spent five years working and maintaining the evil-smelling passages mined with pods.  The mutations kill the Avox workers in the tunnel.  The only sound is a thick guttural scream.  Mesalla is killed by a beam of golden light that melts his flesh off his body like candle wax.  The peacekeepers are decapitated by the perverse psychological mutts.  They are mortal, but only just barely.   They possess mortal eyes.  The Meat Grinder activates and attacks.  Finnick is torn apart by the three mutts.  Gale is wounded in the neck.  Katniss shoots a woman right through the heart.  Katniss recounts all her killings, since she first participated in The Hunger Games.  If any of the rebel party is captured, they commit to swallow a nightlock pill, which is suicide.  A gush of steam parboils refugees.  There are screaming, bleeding people everywhere.  There is a glow of light, and people in the street clutch their faces, as blood sprays from all visible orifices.  Flaps open the street to a vile stench below, like rotted corpses in the summer heat.  Silver parachutes rain down on the children, only to explode upon impact.  (President Coin thought this would expedite the war.)  Prim is killed, she is a human torch.  Katniss votes for the Hunger Games for the children/grandchildren of the Capitol.  Katniss shoots President Coin and kills her.  President Snow dies by choking on his own blood.  There is a reaping of the dead in District 12, as they are buried in a mass grave.

Sexual Content: Katniss feigned pregnancy during the Quarter Quell Games.  Finnick pulls off his hospital gown, as he stands in his underwear, he asks, “Why, do you find this-distracting?”  Katniss kisses Gale, twice.   Katniss and Peeta kiss.  Finnick declares on a national broadcast that President Snow used to sell Finnick’s body.  Every victor is considered desirable, so the president gives them as a reward or allows people to buy them for an exorbitant amount of money.  If you refuse, he kills someone you love.  So, you do it.  Finnick was then paraded about the capitol with these people who devoured him.  Finnick also discloses charges of incest, blackmail, back-stabbing.

Adult Content: War.  Districts grieve for their children as they are murdered.  Tigris’ plastic surgery is plastic surgery gone bad.  Johanna and Katniss both experience drug withdrawal from the morphling.  Katniss attempts a slow suicide through starvation.

Publisher’s Synopsis

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed.  Gale has escaped.  Katniss’s family is safe.  Peeta has been captured by the Capitol.  District 13 really does exist.  There are rebels.  There are new leaders.  A revolution is unfolding.  It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it.  District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol.  Everyone it seems has had a hand in the carefully laid plans–except Katniss.  The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss’s willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem.  To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust.  She must become the rebels’ Mockingjay-no matter what the personal cost. Katniss delivers her own revolution.

Suzanne Collins is a great writer – fabulous denouement! Admittedly, I devoured this book.  I just had to see how Katniss’ story would end.  Although,the story was not as compelling as the first two books. However, there is a high level of violence contained in this final installment.   Mature readers ought to ***Proceed with caution***.  Violence desensitizes.   I was disgusted by the pimping of victors.

©2010 The Literate Mother