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The Hunger Games
Dec. 26th, 2009 08:51 pmI finished the first of this trilogy this morning and I would be reading the sequel, Catching Fire if I had only thought of it when I was at an Indigo bookstore this afternoon! It's on order now anyway. The third book comes out next year and it's going to be a long wait. The Hunger Games is a fine series written by Suzanne Collins, which I found out about from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yalitlovers. Dystopias have been a favourite setting for the genre for years now; this book's dystopia is set in the former United States, now called Panem, split into districts instead of states and the capitol moved from the East coast to somewhere in the former state of Colorado.
The heroine is a tough sixteen year old girl named Katniss Everdeen and she's rather unlikeable at first. She's not your average heroine; she constantly reminded me of an acquaintance who had a hard, hard life as a child. It's really hard to describe this book in a nutshell, but every year the Capitol holds The Hunger Games, which serve as a reminder to the people that the Capitol controls them. A boy and girl tribute are chosen from each district by lottery, and then transported to an arena. The last tribute to survive wins the games. Think of it like a more estrogen fuelled version of The Running Man with all the benefits of modern media. Katniss struggles with deciding how to survive against the other youths.
Suzanne Collins is an exceptional YA writer and I liked how she blended future thought with past and present references. For example, citizens of the Capitol tend to have Roman sounding names (along with a flair for excess), the games are one big Survivor-like reality show and the idea of sending tributes heralds from at least one ancient myth I'm aware of.
It's funny - I was annoyed with Collins for a manipulative plot twist near the end of Part 2, but then I chided myself it fell in line with the way the games and the television audience is manipulated.
yalitlovers. Dystopias have been a favourite setting for the genre for years now; this book's dystopia is set in the former United States, now called Panem, split into districts instead of states and the capitol moved from the East coast to somewhere in the former state of Colorado.The heroine is a tough sixteen year old girl named Katniss Everdeen and she's rather unlikeable at first. She's not your average heroine; she constantly reminded me of an acquaintance who had a hard, hard life as a child. It's really hard to describe this book in a nutshell, but every year the Capitol holds The Hunger Games, which serve as a reminder to the people that the Capitol controls them. A boy and girl tribute are chosen from each district by lottery, and then transported to an arena. The last tribute to survive wins the games. Think of it like a more estrogen fuelled version of The Running Man with all the benefits of modern media. Katniss struggles with deciding how to survive against the other youths.
Suzanne Collins is an exceptional YA writer and I liked how she blended future thought with past and present references. For example, citizens of the Capitol tend to have Roman sounding names (along with a flair for excess), the games are one big Survivor-like reality show and the idea of sending tributes heralds from at least one ancient myth I'm aware of.
It's funny - I was annoyed with Collins for a manipulative plot twist near the end of Part 2, but then I chided myself it fell in line with the way the games and the television audience is manipulated.
