I think of what my brief future as the assassin of Panem’s new president holds. The interrogation, probable torture, certain public execution.

Seriously, book, do you just have a hard-on for torture?  You throw that out way too casually.

I crawl up onto the mattress, expecting to bleed to death.

No such luck. By evening, the blood clots, leaving me stiff and sore and sticky but alive. […] I go ahead and eat the food, take the pills, rub the salve on my skin. I need to focus now on the manner of my suicide.

This series has such a bizarre relationship with suicide.   When it would be appropriate, it’s never discussed.  When it’s for the sake of angst, then it’s on the table, but the means are removed.

Only now we’ve got a good reason for it (…sorta.  She believes she’s going to be tortured.  That belief is flawed, but if you accept that, I’d say you can pick your terms for death over someone else killing you.) and she even has thought up one way to do it, but she has no follow through, because once death doesn’t spontaneously happen, she gives up and takes care of her skin.

Basically in this book suicide is never taken seriously, because it’s only ever used to show off brokeness.  The morality is never discussed, and there’s never any fear or difficulty over the decision, because the book knows that it won’t happen.  It’s more like we’ve got the threat of suicide to say “oooooh, she’s in such a dark place!” the same way there’s been dead bodies to say “oooooh, so gritty and real!” or the same way other books use threats of rape to say “oooooooh, she’s in such danger!”  It’s never a situation that is treated as its own consideration; it’s always a shorthand for something else, which means that the serious issues involved with it get glossed over.

I’m a couple of days into the plan, making good progress, when something unexpected happens. I begin to sing.

…yup, that is totally a spontaneous thing that just happened and not something you started doing.

Just, wow, that came straight out of nowhere with no reason and no will.  Singing…happened.  Because reasons.

Days pass, weeks.

Solitary confinement has been known to severely compromise the mental health of those who are forced into it, and symptoms include auditory and visual hallucinations, hypersensitivity, paranoia, distorted perceptions, and an increased risk of suicide.  And these symptoms can set in after a few days, or even hours.  After months of it, you’re not going to be okay.

Unless you’re Katniss.

Because when the fuck has this book ever treated weighty issues with any degree of sensitivity, gravitas, or even research.

Most of this chapter is just Katniss whining and making grand assumptions.  Hm, maybe that SHU did kick in and she thinks singing “just happened” because she’s really hallucinating it.

I mean, it’s irritating because it’s no different than how she’s been throughout all the books and there’s no marked change in her mental state through all the months and months of solitary that she’s endured, but I guess if take it out of context, it could fit.  As a bland example, but still.

You can spin it any way you like. Snow thought the Hunger Games were an efficient means of control. Coin thought the parachutes would expedite the war. But in the end, who does it benefit? No one. The truth is, it benefits no one to live in a world where these things happen.

Okay, that’s true.

Have you considered running your wars not on anti-logic instead?  Because those aren’t examples of warfare, those are examples of lead-paint-eating levels of not getting it.

An emergency election was thrown together and Paylor was voted in as president.

I think we should add “not understanding how much work goes into this sort of thing” to the list of stuff the book gets wrong.

For instance, you can’t just have everyone write down who they think is the best candidate.  Beyond the logistical considerations, you have to ask who gets to vote.  Practically no one in this country has a full picture of what’s going on, so how can people who’ve never met any of the prospects cast an informed vote?  Is there a limited pool, or can anyone be a write-in vote?  If there’s a limit, how do you pick the nominees?  If you decide the average person can’t make an informed vote (on account of no one knowing what’s going on) then do you decide to limit the voting to fewer people?  Which ones?  Can the capitol people vote or not?

All of this happening, of course, in the middle of the complete and utter chaos that comes after you overthrow an entire frikkin government.

And if D13 had a system that they were ready to substitute in place of the capitol system, then they should have had a backup for Coin already picked.  Seconds-in-command and vice-presidents are a thing.

The first big televised event was my trial, in which he was also a star witness. In my defense, of course. Although most of the credit for my exoneration must be given to Dr. Aurelius, who apparently earned his naps by presenting me as a hopeless, shell-shocked lunatic.

I wonder if the reason we completely skipped her trial is because the book couldn’t manage to make this sound reasonable.

(And even when he’s saving her sorry ass, Katniss can’t stop herself from still taking a dig at the guy.  Because mental health care, psh, what a crock, right?)

“Oh, not now. Now we’re in that sweet period where everyone agrees that our recent horrors should never be repeated,” he says. “But collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction. Although who knows? Maybe this will be it, Katniss.”

“What?” I ask.

“The time it sticks. Maybe we are witnessing the evolution of the human race. Think about that.”

Yeah, the next time an evil dictatorship is taking over and starving everyone into the ground and making sure that the opposition has literally no political power or avenue for peaceful approach and just kills indiscriminately, that time, we’ll not go to war.  That makes so much more sense.

Seriously, this is not the book to be sending this message.  Just…in any way.  FFS, this is a war where something good was actually accomplished, but fuck, don’t tell the book that, according to the book “that doesn’t matter.”

Then I realize what it means. “My mother’s not coming back.”

Well, she’s been absent thus far and Katniss is a shitty daughter, so why not.

Victor’s Village. Half of the houses have lights in the windows, including Haymitch’s and mine.

I’m still waiting to hear how you’ve got electricity, unless those lights are from candles and fireplaces.

I try to figure out my next move. There’s no obstacle now to taking my life. But I seem to be waiting for something.

Katniss’s shut-down attitude upon her arrival home is actually one part of this book that I like.

“Dr. Aurelius wouldn’t let me leave the Capitol until yesterday,” Peeta says. “By the way, he said to tell you he can’t keep pretending he’s treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone.”

Seriously, is he like the only psychologist the country has?  Why does he suck so much?  She’s clearly in need of mental health care, but he’s like “oh, yeah, I’ll just leave you alone in a house full of stabby things and not worry at all about the fact you don’t pick up the phone.”  Is there no one better around, or does the book think that shrinks are all lazy hacks who are cool with this sort of thing?  Or is it just accidently saying that because it’s a convenient way to avoid writing Katniss getting some help?

What does this book have against Katniss getting some help?

Does the book think that it’s only “real” recovery if she does it on her own?  (Or + Power of Love?)  ‘Cause that idea can go crawl off and die right now.  That’s a pretty toxic pile of shit that a lot of people believe, and it ruins a lot of lives.

(Speaking of TV shows you should be watching instead, watch Scrubs Season 6 Episode 4, “My House,” to see one guy telling his wife that she can be strong through her postpartum depression, then finding out she took his advice a little bit too well when she later refuses to seek treatment because she thinks she should be able to get over it on her own.  Turk’s face when Carla throws his own words back to him – with complete sincerity – is one of the best moments in the show.)

I’m about to yell vicious things at Peeta when the full name comes to me. Not plain rose but evening primrose.

This is a rose:

This is an evening primrose:

How do you mix those up for even a second?

I dig around inside myself, trying to register anger, hatred, longing. I find only relief.

Over Gale leaving.

The last time we saw him, he was walking away while Katniss was unable to speak.  He hasn’t been back since, not at the assassination, not through her recovery, not at all.  Katniss never choses Peeta over Gale.  She just sort of gets left with one after the other wanders off, having never made any choice, be it positive or negative.

Hell, she doesn’t choose Peeta, either.  He just sticks around like a bad penny, and he ends up being the only guy her own age within hundreds of miles, so….

“Get out!” He dodges the pillow I throw at him. “Go away! There’s nothing left for you here!” I start to shake, furious with him. “She’s not coming back! She’s never ever coming back here again!” I grab another pillow and get to my feet to improve my aim. Out of nowhere, the tears begin to pour down my cheeks. “She’s dead.” I clutch my middle to dull the pain.

Actually, most of the depiction of Katniss’s grief and apathy after she gets home again are done fairly well.  

On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway.

Still can’t say “lust,” I see.

It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly.

The first time I read this, I actually thought it was good that Katniss ended up having kids.  Because her reasons for not wanting them was fear that they’d end up in the games, and therefore her having kids was a sign that she’d given up that fear and considered the matter in a different light.  She was never anti-kid, she was just anti-kids-being-taken-away.

But, no, that’s not what happened at all.  Instead she just got bullied for 15 years by her husband until she caved in.  I see Peeta hasn’t changed his creeptastic ways one bit.

(BTW, we got exactly zero mention of that “last hunger game.”  Apparently Katniss has no fucks to give over whether it happened or not.  Or are we supposed to assume that it didn’t happen because Coin is dead?  Because everyone voted on it, so it wasn’t Coin’s brainchild anymore, but we never hear about it.)

And that’s the end of that.  Finally we’ve finished this entire series.  It, oddly enough, ended on a relative high note at the end there with some of the best emotional writing yet.  Katniss being emo while not doing anything has always been THG’s strongest point, and it was finally an appropriate thing to have going on.

UP NEXT:  Graceling and Fallen tied, and when there’s a tie I do both books.  I think I’ll go with Fallen first, because Graceling would be too similar to THG.  I need a change of pace for a while.