Review: The Hunger Games

/ Heather

Book by Suzanne Collins

Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . . In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

From the Chapters/Indigo Website description.

Read this book if you love:

  • a grumpy antihero just trying to keep her family alive.
  • YA Distopian future
  • Survival of the fittest: only the sole winner lives.

My Review

I’m rereading this because I’m reading the prequel A Balland of Songs and Snakes. This book is fast paced, and I originally purchased it (in paperback) when I was flying from Toronto to Vancouver, and then proceeded to finish it in one reading. Then had to wait for the sequels to come out.

What I loved:

By the end of the first chapter, I was hooked, and new I’d found the next perfect book to devour. Suzanne Collins makes her heroine and family loved right from the start. They stick in your heart, and you don’t want to let them go. The premise, only 1 can survive out of a deadly survivor game, juxtaposed with the soul of a caring heroine and some other beloved characters makes the story fast-paced.

The world creation is outstanding, Suzanne Collin’s dystopia is a definite but not heavy-handed commentary on our society today. While you wonder about how people can willingly want to watch teenagers murder each other in a modern-day coliseum, you can’t help but sympathize with their ignorance. It makes the reader wonder what she’s seen in her day.

This was a book I not only devoured, but made me lie awake at night, wondering what was going to happen next. I pictured what I would do with the characters, and while I often knew what she foreshadowed, Ms Collins surprised me again and again. After I finished the book, I dreamed about the characters because they were so real to me. I consider this a tribute to Ms. Collins’ writing. The last books that achieved that with me were the Harry Potter series. (I read the first four one long weekend in August years ago.) Part of it is the unfinished feel to the Hunger Games; the reader is left wanting more.

I recommend buying the whole series as a trilogy.

What I didn’t love:

Make no mistake, this book is brutal, and it’s labelled a mature read with good reason. I probably would have read this book earlier as a child, probably around 8-10 years old. But that doesn’t mean I should have. Publishers recommend this book to those at least 12, because it deals with so much death. If I’d read the book at 8, I would definitely have had nightmares.

My Analysis

POV:

3rd, past, Her, Him. (Dual POV)

Genre:

External: Action – Labyrinth
Global Values: Death / Life
Core Need: Survival
Core Emotion: Excitement

Internal: Worldview – Disillusionment
Global Values: Ignorance to Wisdom
Core Emotion: Pity

Controlling idea:  You survive when you learn to play the game and the system.

Violence: There is a lot of action and violence.
Gore: people die, in emotionally and graphic scenes of teenagers killing each other.
Romance/Sex: hints at romance.
Series: The Hunger Games, Book 1.
Reality Clover: Fantasy

Reference:

Website: https://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com

Prim is screaming hysterically behind me. She’s wrapped her skinny arms around me like a vase. “No, Katniss! No! You can’t go!”

“PRim, let go,” I say harshly, because this is upsetting me and I don’t want to cry. When they televise the replay of the reapings tonight, everyone will make note of my tears, and I’ll be marked as an easy target. A weakling. I will give no one that satisfaction. “Let go!”

I can feel someone pulling her from my back. I turn and see Gale has lifted Prim off the ground and she’s thrashing in his arms. “Up you go, Catnip,” he says in a voice he’s fighting to keep steady, and then he carries Prim off toward my mother. I steel myself and climb the steps.

…

To the every lasting credit of the people of District 12, not one person claps. Not even the ones holding betting slips, the ones who are usually beyond caring. Possibly because they know me from the Hob, or knew my father, or have encountered Prim, who no one can help loving. So instead of acknowledging applause, I stand there unmoving while they take part in the bolder form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong.

Susanne Collins, The Hunger Games