Mockingjay

89/100
Mockingjay is the best of the original trilogy, and while I haven't read either prequel in full yet, I highly doubt they will top it. This book is great. I love the way it focuses on the lore of the series, as well as the civil war that breaks out. This book is the best because it does what Catching Fire did great (read my review of that book and much of it applies here,) but adds an extremely engaging war with thematic purpose, Katniss' escalating involvement in the conflict, and so much drama that really feels meaningful and engaging. You have to read it to get why the drama is so good, at least to me, but it just is. I really admire how the series can rehash the “katniss gets mad at gale or peeta and then realizes she's being kinda a douche” thing several times and always have it be good. I keep going back to this, but the war is just so well played out. It's another thing you just need to see. The pacing is flawless throughout basically the whole thing, but the main thing I want to talk about is the ending. So, Prim's dead. Huh. I hated this decision at first. The entire series happened because Katniss wanted to keep her sister alive. So why, in the climax of the story, is she killed in a civilian bombing by her own side of the war? Well, it's to show that President Coin is really not that much better than Snow, their enemy. When Katniss finds this out, this gives her the initiative she needs to assassinate Coin, which is an extremely powerful move. In my opinion, this decision is to show that she doesn't conform to a particular side, person or country. Katniss does anything to protect what she loves, even when the Rebels helped her in a lot of ways. Because again, it's not about sides; the decision was about Coin in particular.
I want to say that I have an issue with the ending. The vote on having one last hunger games to punish those who subjected their citizens to the hunger games. This was stupid. The choice is obviously not to waste money and human suffering on petty revenge. The Rebels aren't necessary better than this, but Katniss absolutely is, and for some unexplained reason she votes yes. She wants to round up a bunch of Capital officials and have them as tributes in another hunger games. Don't ask me why. I don't want to give the impression that the ending is bad; it's generally great, and every second of it was very enjoyable except for the blemish I just mentioned. I won't go on for longer, but I'll close this by saying that the series is really great and deserved the attention it got, although I feel like it was popular for all the wrong reasons. While most know it for its love triangle, fights to the death and its popularization of the teen dystopian genre, I think its strengths lie in its bursting personality, mastering of plot structure and character, its accurate depiction of the human condition during times of poverty, and later war.