I watched the first two Hunger Games movies, and then my middle son got interested, so we rewatched them together. It was a nice Mommy-G moment. After that we had been waiting for Mockingjay, Part 1 to come to our cheapy theatre ($5/adults, $3.50/kids) so we could go together. (This movie theatre is really the only way our entire family could go out to the movies all together, all five of us, which we are lucky to do more often than we would be able to.)

While we were waiting, hanging on every trailer, I unfortunately read a spoiler that I regretted (spoilers almost never bother me, but this one knocked me down).  I decided to read the third book since it would be weeks until the movie got to our theatre.

I managed to borrow it from the library for my kindle, and as a YA novel it was a very fast read. I wasn’t sure how it would go because I’d never read the first two books, but I dove right in.

I really enjoyed the tone of it, Katniss’ voice. I’m certain that it helped to have seen the first two movies.  I think it was written with that in mind, not that it would be turned into a movie, but with the pacing of watching a movie. (I often write like that, so it was very familiar to me.)

I could easily picture the characters through their actors’ voices. It was very vivid, and even with my ritual of pausing at each chapter, the intensity and the suspense remained and kept me riveted.

For the Blogging 101 challenge, I was asked to pick up the nearest book, turn to page 82 and read the third sentence.

I’m trying to think of a witty comeback, when Boggs says brusquely, “Well, don’t expect us to be impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear.”

For Katniss this was the moment where she softened on Boggs. She said as much in the next few sentences of the chapter. I missed that this wasn’t in the movie. I understand that there isn’t room for every favorite incident from the book to fit in the movies; there just isn’t enough time, but I really liked this one.

I thought it not only made a District 13 person more human, less machine and more humane and I immediately liked him right before Katniss did, but it also made the District 13 bodyguard much more than one-dimensional. Up until that moment, he was a cardboard cutout. Suzanne Collins did a good job of giving him a physical description so I could picture him in my mind, but up until then I was waiting for a shoe to drop.

Would Katniss try to escape from his constant guard? Would he betray her to his district’s higher objectives? Would they be at odds for the rest of the book?

After this, there were other shoe dropping to look for – the inevitable conflict Boggs would have between his loyalty to his President and home district and to his newfound loyalty to Katniss, not only all that she represented as the Mockingjay, but as a person he really liked and cared for.

This was the moment when he wasn’t just doing a job; he was her ally, and I loved that about this subtlety.

I won’t give any spoilers on how the book turned out, but even knowing the end, I can’t wait to see how the next half of the movie will be!