by Suzanne Collins, 2010 (final book of the Hunger Games)
Katniss is rescued out of the Hunger Games at the capital before she is killed (end of Book 2) and taken to District 13, the District everyone thought was destroyed 75 years ago by the Capitol. But really they went underground and have been planning a rebellion ever since.
Katniss becomes the Mockingjay – the spokesperson of the rebellion, to rally the troops and conquer the Capitol. She is successful. Gale saved her Mom and little sister out of District 12 before the Capitol destroyed it, and they live with her in District 13, underground. Gale and Katniss become friends again. But Peeta, who was taken captive by the Capitol, is being tortured and brainwashed (hi-jacked) by President Snow. Gale and others finally rescue him and bring him to District 13. The first time he sees Katniss he tries to strangle her. They have to keep him handcuffed.
President Coin is the leader of District 13 and leader of rebellion – a matter-of-fact woman who Katniss is not sure of.
In the end, Katniss, Gale, Peeta and others are sent to the Capitol to help take it. Katniss leads her little band eventually to the front of President Snow’s mansion where a group of children are waiting to take refuge. A hovercraft drops silver parachutes to them which should have been food and gifts but end up being bombs. Some of them explode, killing and wounding the children. Prim, Katniss’s beloved sister, who is a doctor/nurse-in-training, runs to help the wounded and the rest of the parachutes explode killing her and badly injuring Katniss. The rebellion conquers the capital, imprisons Pres. Snow in the mansion rose garden. Pres. Coin takes over. Katniss gets to assassinate Pres. Snow and when she takes aim with her bow and arrow, she raises it to the balcony and kills Pres. Coin instead. Pres. Snow dies right after that. Katniss had just been part of a vote of the victors arranged by Pres. Coin to have another Hunger Games using Capitol children this time. She had voted yes. Peeta voted no. Pres. Coin had shown her true colors by coming up with it.
Katniss is taken back to District 12. She goes for months in her house just sitting in her kitchen. Greasy Sae feeds her. After a few months, she sees Peeta outside planting primroses in honor of Prim. Then, Prim’s cat Buttercup comes limping home from District 13 and Katniss finally breaks down and cries and grieves her beloved sister’s death. Gale’s bombs that he designed with Beetee were the silver parachutes. Gale has gone to work in District 2. Peeta is in District 12. Katniss and Peeta end up together, healing together.
Last paragraph: “Peeta and I grow back together. There are still moments when he clutches the back of a chair and hangs on until the flashbacks are over. I wake screaming from nightmares of mutts and lost children. But his arms are there to comfort me. And eventually his lips. On the night I feel that thing again, the hunger that overtook me on the beach, I know this would have happened anyway. That what I needed to survive was not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.
So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?”
I tell him, “Real.”
Epilogue: Peeta and Katniss watch their 2 children, a little boy and girl, playing in the meadow that has grown over the graveyard.
Last paragraphs: “My children, who don’t know they play on a graveyard.
Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that makes them braver. But one day I’ll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won’t ever really go away.
I’ll tell them how I survive it. I’ll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I’m afraid it could be taken away. That’s when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive. Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.
But there are much worse games to play.
The End.”