I have officially finished listening to Mockingjay and honestly? My emotions are all over the place.

This audiobook had me switching sides every five minutes. I went from loving Peeta to hating Peeta to wanting to hug Peeta. Then Gale would suddenly say something smart and I’d be like “okay maybe I do like Gale,” and then two chapters later I wanted him to stop talking immediately. I genuinely don’t even know what to think anymore.

And that is exactly why this book was so good.

The audiobook itself was SO intense. You could literally hear the exhaustion in Katniss. Everything felt stressful all the time and I mean that as a compliment. District 13 felt cold, miserable and weirdly uncomfortable compared to the chaos of the Capitol. Nothing about this story feels glamorous. It’s just trauma, survival, manipulation and people trying to hold themselves together long enough to get through another day.

What I really loved about this book is that it doesn’t pretend war is exciting. There’s no magical “good side fixes everything” feeling. Everyone is damaged. Everyone makes questionable choices. Half the time I didn’t even know who I agreed with anymore.

Now let’s talk about Peeta because WHAT was that emotional rollercoaster.

Watching him change throughout this book honestly hurt my feelings. You remember the old Peeta — sweet, kind, protective — and then suddenly he feels like a completely different person. I kept getting frustrated with him while also feeling awful for him at the same time because you know none of this is really his fault. Suzanne Collins somehow managed to make me angry and heartbroken at the same time which is honestly rude.

And Gale… oh Gale.

This book completely changed how I saw him. Earlier in the series I really liked him, but Mockingjay starts showing this colder side to him where winning becomes more important than people. Every time I started liking him again he’d say or do something that made me go “absolutely not.” I was genuinely fighting for my life trying to decide how I felt about him.

Katniss herself felt so real in this book though. She’s not some perfect hero delivering inspirational speeches every five minutes. Most of the time she’s exhausted, traumatised, angry or completely emotionally checked out, and honestly? Fair enough. The pressure everyone puts on her to become “the Mockingjay” actually made me feel bad for her because half the time she clearly doesn’t even want it.

And the ending…

I actually had to sit there afterwards and process everything because WHAT. SO MANY TWISTS AND TURNS. By the end I didn’t trust anyone, I didn’t know who was right anymore and emotionally I was just tired.

But weirdly, I think that’s why this book works so well.

It’s messy. It’s painful. It’s frustrating. It’s emotional. Nobody gets a perfect happy ending wrapped up in a bow because that wouldn’t even make sense for this story.

This audiobook genuinely took me through every emotion possible and left me confused in the best way. I loved people, hated people, forgave people and then got annoyed at them all over again.

And honestly? I think that’s exactly what Suzanne Collins wanted.