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Books 2012 #1, #2, #3 - The Hunger Games
Jan. 27th, 2012 10:08 amGosh, I'm really not reading much at the moment. But with all the general fuss about the books, I thought I'd check it out. So that's the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzzane Collins.
General - not bad. They were well written, and for the most part took me along for the story, a lot of nice "visuals" which play on the eyeballs nicely. Interestingly, I came away with less impression of how the first person narrator looked than anybody else did.
Most people are probably familiar with the set up. It's some point in the future, the writer has said it's 3 digit years from now where the USA and most of the planet has collapsed - cause unknown; war and environmental collapse are mentioned. A new government arose in the Capitol for the nation of Panem, somewhere near Denver, and created a country of districts supporting the Capitol. This I found to be a little bit of a weak. The "districts" seem over specialized really - District 4 is the Pacific Northwest which does "fishing", District 3 is in the Bay Area and does electronics and so forth. The area where the story starts is District 12 which is all mining. This is one of the weaker aspects of the world building, but it's a YA book - I can live with that.
74 years before the start of the book, the districts rose up against the Capitol in a rebellion leading to the destruction of a District (13) and the imposition of The Hunger Games as revenge. Each year, each district has to send a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to the Capitol to take part in a fight to the death in a huge arena. It's become part of the culture of the Capitol and, understandably, a point of serious friction between the Capitol and the Districts.
The Hunger Games - first book - about the 74th games in which Katniss, a 16 year old from District 12, fights in. It's a good read, disturbing - Collins is certainly very good at getting you to care about characters you know are just not going to make it. There isn't room for a happy ending here, people can and will die and a lot of them will do so, and it will be shown to be shocking and unfair.
Catching Fire- Book 2 - after the Hunger Games, is basically filling about the revenge President Snow of the Capitol wants to take on Katniss over her 'solution' to the games.
Mockingjay - Book 2 - the final stage of the story.
Book 3 felt a little weak to me frankly, but it did round off the story. There are no particularly black or white characters here. Even those portrayed as irredeemably evil tend to have more complex sets of motivations which is something that rarely gets into YA books, nor even adult ones. The protagonist is pretty unpleasant herself, and frankly, she doesn't much care about that. She isn't particularly interesting in boys or "love" she wants to live and is prepared to do pretty much anything to do so. She makes an excellent contrast to the inexorable Bella of Twilight.
It's not a long read, and as a YA book it's not a hard read... that said, the content itself is pretty hard.
I'm looking forward to the movie. Based on the trailers they seem to have done a rather good job visually with what my brain seems to think ought to be there. Some good casting too.
General - not bad. They were well written, and for the most part took me along for the story, a lot of nice "visuals" which play on the eyeballs nicely. Interestingly, I came away with less impression of how the first person narrator looked than anybody else did.
Most people are probably familiar with the set up. It's some point in the future, the writer has said it's 3 digit years from now where the USA and most of the planet has collapsed - cause unknown; war and environmental collapse are mentioned. A new government arose in the Capitol for the nation of Panem, somewhere near Denver, and created a country of districts supporting the Capitol. This I found to be a little bit of a weak. The "districts" seem over specialized really - District 4 is the Pacific Northwest which does "fishing", District 3 is in the Bay Area and does electronics and so forth. The area where the story starts is District 12 which is all mining. This is one of the weaker aspects of the world building, but it's a YA book - I can live with that.
74 years before the start of the book, the districts rose up against the Capitol in a rebellion leading to the destruction of a District (13) and the imposition of The Hunger Games as revenge. Each year, each district has to send a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to the Capitol to take part in a fight to the death in a huge arena. It's become part of the culture of the Capitol and, understandably, a point of serious friction between the Capitol and the Districts.
The Hunger Games - first book - about the 74th games in which Katniss, a 16 year old from District 12, fights in. It's a good read, disturbing - Collins is certainly very good at getting you to care about characters you know are just not going to make it. There isn't room for a happy ending here, people can and will die and a lot of them will do so, and it will be shown to be shocking and unfair.
Catching Fire- Book 2 - after the Hunger Games, is basically filling about the revenge President Snow of the Capitol wants to take on Katniss over her 'solution' to the games.
Mockingjay - Book 2 - the final stage of the story.
Book 3 felt a little weak to me frankly, but it did round off the story. There are no particularly black or white characters here. Even those portrayed as irredeemably evil tend to have more complex sets of motivations which is something that rarely gets into YA books, nor even adult ones. The protagonist is pretty unpleasant herself, and frankly, she doesn't much care about that. She isn't particularly interesting in boys or "love" she wants to live and is prepared to do pretty much anything to do so. She makes an excellent contrast to the inexorable Bella of Twilight.
It's not a long read, and as a YA book it's not a hard read... that said, the content itself is pretty hard.
I'm looking forward to the movie. Based on the trailers they seem to have done a rather good job visually with what my brain seems to think ought to be there. Some good casting too.
