The Hunger Games

In March our book club elected to read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and I’ll be forthcoming and admit that I was not thrilled. I have a devious little streak in me that avoids whatever books are selling really well because I don’t want to buy into the hype. The problem is, if my readers will remember from an earlier post, sometimes there’s hype for a reason.

As it turns out I read the entire trilogy in ten days. They were totally absorbing. I cried. I despaired. I gasped aloud. The story was just terrible enough to be appalling, romantic enough to be hopeful, and set in a futuristic place that nonetheless was familiar enough to make is scary. And they must have been well-written because I didn’t notice otherwise.

I appreciated the appeal of the stories to boys and girls, and ultimately, to my husband who is not a terribly interested reader. His comment was that he knew they must be good because all his 8^th graders were reading them (not just the girls), and so were all the teachers. I was pleased that he read them along with me and we had a great time sharing the suspense.

In the end, middle school would be my threshold for young people to read these books. The themes are pretty violent and I would want to make sure my child had the cognitive capacity to process the story somewhat politically. Without that they revert to a “Team Peeta vs. Team Gale” romance fixation that seems to have begun with the Twilight series (a bandwagon I don’t think I’ll get on). This is too bad because the author didn’t sexualize her at all, that wasn’t the point of the story. If not that pitfall, children may fixate on the violence and not be able to comprehend the story at all. I wouldn’t want this either.

I highly recommend this series, particularly to folks who are into dystopian literature, political uprisings or coups, or if they’re looking for a female protagonist with grit. I’m not buying many books these days but this is a series I will absolutely read again.

The Hunger Games

I've had a problem with reading lately. I can't seem to stick with one book and finish it. The books haven't been bad, it's just that the library keeps sending me ones from my request list, so I have to read those first before they are due. So even though my last post was at the end of December, there has been reading progress. The books in queue are Cleopatra, A Life; One, Two, Three, Infinity, Facts and Speculation of Science; Anne of Green Gables, Sherlock Holmes, and Shop Class as Soul Craft.

The latest diversion was a trilogy by Suzanne Collins called the Hunger Games Trilogy. It is a set of juvenile fiction books set in the near, post-apocalyptic United States. It's these types of books that make library waiting lists seem to take forever and tempt a person to go buy the series just to see what happens next. The story starts with The Hunger Games, continues with Catching Fire and ends with Mockingjay. The main charcter is teenager Katniss Everdeen. She's a female hero you root for, but probably would not want to be in her shoes.

For 74 years, what remains of the United States has been divided up into the Capitol and 13 districts. In an effort to keep the districts under control, The Capitol maintains propoganda and strict discipline to keep each district relying on help from the Capitol without having much to do with other district. To remind them of this reliance and warn against rebellion, the Capitol hosts the annual Hunger Games where a male and female teenager from each district is selected during the reaping and is sent to an arena to fight to the death during a televised "celebration." The first book features the 74th annual Hunger Games. During this episode, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark represent District 12 in a highly unusual Hunger Games.

In Catching Fire, Katniss' performance in the previous Hunger Games has sparked dissent in the districts. As part of her role as victor, she is to travel to the other districts for celebrations, even as she as to face the families of those she has killed in the Hunger Games. Despite warning and her best effort to avoid trouble, her presence inflames more people in the districts to rise against the Capitol.

With Mockingjay, the rebellion begins to take place. Secret alliances are brought to light and the series comes to a satisfying, if not happy, ending.

I realize I am being vague with the book descriptions, but I do not want to give anything away if you readers decide to try the series. Here's my warning: be prepared to start and finish a book in one day or you may have trouble sleeping as your brain tries to guess what will happen next.