The Hunger Games (edition 2008)

Fantastic read! I read all three books in this series in 3 days. You really get invested in the characters quickly! ( )

I haven’t read these books in a decade and I must say this one still holds up pretty well. I only read the books once before. I read the entire trilogy before I even watched the first movie and my last memories of the series are from the movies, which I didn’t even finished watching. I never watched the last movie and I didn’t care for those adaptations that much anyway. It bothered me how many dark moments were ignored or toned down and how much emphasis was put on the romance, even if I understand the reasons why that was done for the movies. That said, I kept being surprised each time I was reminded how dark this book actually is and how little romance there is in it. It’s true that there are two boys that have a crush on the main character, but she just doesn’t really care. Katniss can be read as aromantic or someone that has yet to figure out her feelings in that filled since she was never in love before. She sees one of the boys as her best friend that is more like a brother and the other one as a person that keeps being kind to her and she feels like she owes him something. That’s about it.

The first obstacle in this series is that people need to sustain their disbelief enough to buy that in this world there are only 12 districts and the Capitol and that these people really enjoy seeing teenagers kill each other to death and think that is the way to put the people from the districts in place and avoid a revolution. That can be hard to do and I get if some people can’t do that. As a reader of speculative fiction, I have no problems with this premise.

The second is that this book is written in first person present, which, from what I’ve seen, is mostly just used in YA and a lot of people are not fans of it. Personally, I feel that it works really well when it comes to adventure and action stories because it puts the reader in the middle of the scene at the moment that is happening. For me, at least, that is more immersive in these kind of books. I just don’t read much of it because usually action scenes bore me and to this book’s credit very little of those bored me here and I think part of it was the writing style that helped my involvement as a reader in the scenes.

Most people probably know the basic plot of these books by now. The Hunger Games are organized by the Capitol and a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and18 are picked from each district to participate in these deadly games where there can only be one victor. The books address a lot of themes in a really good way that makes sure the readers understand the messages without it being dumbed down. There is the capitalism, the fashion industry, poverty, social class conflicts and a lot of others. The list is really big and most of the themes are presented constantly in the first part of the book, that I had to stop myself from taking notes of since there was just so much to analyse in every page.

One of the main reasons the popularity of the romance bothers me so much, besides being such a minimal part of this book, is that it completely overshadows sisterly love. The most emotional moments in this book are when Katniss sacrifices herself from her younger sister and then when the youngest competitor in the games, that Katniss got attached to because it reminded her of said sister, dies. Giving so much importance to the “romance” does this book an enormous disservice and I hate the love triangle and the “who will she chose” in fandom spaces. I hate it even more if it’s not a thing in the source material!

I honestly forgot how ruthless and logical Katniss is and this made me realize that books with a lot of internalized thoughts by the main character are extremely hard to adapt. Seeing Katniss think about so many things at the same time and question if something is true or if she is being manipulated is one of the best parts of the story. It’s what makes her dynamic with Peeta so great! We are shown that Peeta can manipulate a crowd and he is good at lying so it’s completely believable that Katniss doesn’t know if he is being honest or just playing the game. I remember being unsure myself when I first read the book. When it’s found that Peeta wasn’t actually lying about his crush on her it also makes the dynamic more interesting because all along it was Katniss the one that was manipulating both the audience and Peeta so there is that shift in what she thinks and how she acts that I really appreciate.

Katniss is also shown as unlikeable. On page 2 she is already admitting she tried to drown a cat and throughout the book she kills a bunch of animals and some teens. Besides that, she uses manipulation to survive and drugs Peeta in order to put him to sleep. Sure, most of these things are justifiable to some extent, but the way readers interpret it depends a lot on presentation. Katniss is not hated because we see her internal thoughts and feelings about each situation.

Now, the book isn’t perfect. There is a short moment where a kid with intellectual disability is compared to a pet, for example. This happened in conversation and was said by a teen which doesn’t make it unrealistic, but it’s there and some readers might be put off by it. There is also the fact that Katniss immediately trusts Cinna even though he is a resident from the Capitol. She trusts him just because he wears simple clothes and doesn’t look as extravagant as the rest. I love Cinna and I understand the connection between extravagant fashion and evil in these books, but fashion can also be used for self expression and not all of it is evil.

It’s also true that Katniss survived partly because of luck, like having the gold mockingjay pin given by her friend and that made Rue trust her and having Cinna as her fashion designer, but also because of her small kind gestures, like when Tresh let her live because of her alliance with Rue.

As I wrote above, action scenes tend to bore me so I found myself a little tired of it in the 2nd and 3rd part of this book. However, I think a lot of readers love that and will enjoy those scenes. We are limited by Katniss’ perspective, but even like that I got interested in some of the side characters no matter how little they showed up, like Foxface. It’s actually nice to see that this book has a bunch of strong female characters when a lot of the ones being published today still seem to get that wrong and only favour the protagonist.

This review is long enough, but, summing it up, this book is pretty much as good as I remembered and still one of the darkest, if not the darkest, YA books I ever read. I might have no interest in the new books in the series that are coming out now, but I completely understand the popularity of these ones. ( )

Book club book by Jenny ( )

“Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

Great book.

I was pulled into the world of The Hunger games.

It was the first Dystopian book I ever read and fueled me with a hunger for more in the Genre.

I should say I lent this book to friends, all of whom loved it even one who generally stays away from dark books. She wound up reading and loving the whole trilogy!

Cannot say enough about how great the whole series is. ( )

Incredible! ( )