I did it. I finished. And now I have to get it out of me before I can forget it all and the real world folds up these feelings and locks them inside.
I finished Mockingjay. It's not the first time I've read it, nor will it be the last. But maybe it's the first time I really read it. Maybe it's the first time I really tried to read every word on those pages.
The same things still irked me. I didn't like the militaristic feel of the book, the confusing imagery of the Capitol. But the book took on a whole new meaning for me. I guess I can pin it down to Prim.
The moment when I absorbed every inch of that book came with Prim. The moment those bombs went off and I knew Prim wasn't coming back. I knew Prim was dead. It hurt. It hurt so much is was ridiculous. I had to remind myself Prim was fictional, she never existed. But isn't that the beauty of these books? That you can feel these characters personalities and lives taking shape right before your eyes? That they can touch you in a way you had no idea was possible? With just simple words! Simple words on a page that tell a story.
I guess it was actually Katniss that hurt. I felt like Katniss - for no other reason than she thought like me. Not in the sense of survival, or hunting, or how she analyzed peoples every move. It was more of the way she thought when she came out of her deathly state after the explosions that killed Prim. Her words and hurt described a deep unquenchable pain. She couldn't stop that pain, she ran from that pain. Buried herself in closets and silence and guilt because of that pain, because she couldn't face it. It was just like me I guess, that's what made me feel pain too, because she was in pain - and after reading seeing everything she went through, how is it possible to stand much more?
I'm not good with words. How do I describe how that pain effected me? But do I even have to? Surely you understand too. You understand how her pain was my pain, and undoubtedly your pain.
The moment when Buttercup comes back was probably the worst. I lost it then. That poor cat that Prim loved so much, that Katniss loved so much because Prim loved him. It was the words and the frustration that came from those moments that touched something deep down. It punctured a wound in my heart and I cried. I don't cry in books, I can tell reality from fiction. But that didn't stop the tears coming fast and thick, with sobs that hurt my throat because I didn't want anyone else to hear them. It was in that moment that my heart went out to a fictional character, because her little sister was gone and never coming back. Her world was gone.
And it was her words after her mourning and her grief that brought even more tears. Somehow she had the will to move on, to try and get past what was holding her back. She wrote a book, a book about her loved ones and the people she knew and missed, a book about the despicable actions of the Capitol and the horror of the Hunger Games. Somehow those few pages made me cry for hours, because I felt the pain of a girl who wasn't real. Only in books did her heart beat, only in books did her soul grieve. But mine grieved with her, beat with her, hurt with her.
You'll have read this and think I'm a crazy super fan, but I'm not. I'm just a girl who loves words. Which is why I love Peeta.
But thats a story for another time.
Why did you love the books?
