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The Hunger Games Trilogy

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
After searching the entire Novels & Stories forum I could not find a thread about Suzanne Collin's trilogy The Hunger Games, and so I could not wait to start it myself =)

I really liked the recent Hunger Games movie, so two days ago I went to the Mall and bought the first book of the trilogy (castilian language version) and started to read it to discover, surprised, that the story has hooked me after reading the first few pages... After reading the first chapter it was hard for me to stop reading and put the book away at night, and now I am ready to start reading chapter 5.

The first-person narrative is not really my favourite, but in this book the style is so well done- The way that Katniss tells the story is addictive, and it has quickly touched me and reached my heart as she describes her life, her family, their everyday trouble and the world that they live in...

I can't stop reading now!! So, who else is a fan of The Hunger Games books?
 

Tasha

Dreamer
Love them. I saw the first movie but will have to go see it again as I was just out the dentist and was not paying much attention. Haven't read the books in a few years though. Will have to dig them out again. It's one of the few series where I like first person narrative.
 
Liked book 1, didn't like book 2, still don't know what to make of book 3--the usual response, as I understand it. I've heard it argued that the worldbuilding doesn't make much sense from an economic and societal perspective, but I don't know enough about that stuff yet to judge, and the characterization was interesting.

(I find it amusing that Stephenie Meyer liked this book, because Katniss actually is what Bella was apparently intended to be--a heroine who has about as much self-esteem as a dry sponge, but who's often far more capable and effective than she realizes.)
 
I saw the movie, then read book 1 the next day. I liked them both, although I think my perception of the book was strongly colored by having seen the movie. (This isn't always the case; there are books where I read them after seeing the movie and got a very different experience out of it, e.g. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.) The Hunger Games the book almost read like a novelization of the movie, oddly enough. If you haven't read or seen it, I'd recommend reading the book first.

I'm doing an experiment where I'm not going to read each Hunger Games book until I see the movie, so it'll be a couple years before I finish either version of the trilogy. ;)

Liked book 1, didn't like book 2, still don't know what to make of book 3--the usual response, as I understand it. I've heard it argued that the worldbuilding doesn't make much sense from an economic and societal perspective, but I don't know enough about that stuff yet to judge, and the characterization was interesting.

(I find it amusing that Stephenie Meyer liked this book, because Katniss actually is what Bella was apparently intended to be--a heroine who has about as much self-esteem as a dry sponge, but who's often far more capable and effective than she realizes.)

I liked Katniss as a character. Low self-esteem, but in a totally understandable way: she's grown up in a horrible dystopia, scrounging for her life. But she's tough and capable, which puts her light-years ahead of an ineffectual wimp like Bella.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
This morning I finished reading chapter 10 and I want to read at least four chapters more before going to sleep tonight... I am at the part where Katniss is about to be released at the Cornucopia with the other tributes, can't wait to read what happens then (even though I watched the movie) and how she is going to survive in the forests =)

@Benjamin: The way that I imagine Katniss, the other characters and all the settings are also influenced by having watched the movie first, but that's alright, I loved the movie- Actually the book and the movie are so similar because Suzanne Collins adapted the story for a movie herself, which is what I want to do if my own books are ever transformed into movies.

Katniss is really a great character!!
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
I thought the 1st book was a good story but it didn't hook me enough to read #2 & 3.

The reading is simple. I think it was intended for a YA audience so it makes sense that it was written this way. Recently I have started to wonder why the YA fiction has exploded into the adult market. I can't help but think that most adults are lazy readers & don't want to be challenged in any way (vocabulary, plot twists to keep up with, concealed intrigue, etc.).

There was never a moment that I wondered what the outcome of the first book (or any separate scenes) would be. I know that having a 1st person POV creates that a lot of times but stories like these are just far too predictable for me. I feel like I'm reading a child's book (if it is YA then I guess I was).
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Well, I am an adult and what I want to read or watch are good stories, and sometimes the huge books with difficult vocabulary, many plot twists to keep up with, concealed intrigue, elevated content, hundreds of deeply developed characters and such things are not always better than the more simple stories that can be told in shorter books =)

I do not believe in age groups like adult books or young adult and so on, and as a Fantasy writer, I write my stories for all of those that love imagination no matter how old they are.

Too many people believing that if your books are short and not super complex, then you cannot be good...
 

Endymion

Troubadour
The first book is great. Second book was, well, pretty bad, the third book improved a bit but wasn't good either.
Have you seen Battle Royal?
 

Kit

Maester
Just read Battle Royale. Premise fascinating, characterization pretty poor, writing CRINGEWORTHY. But who knows how much of that is attributable to translation. Dare say the original Japanese was better (had to be....:rolleyes:)
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Sheilawisz said:
Well, I am an adult and what I want to read or watch are good stories, and sometimes the huge books with difficult vocabulary, many plot twists to keep up with, concealed intrigue, elevated content, hundreds of deeply developed characters and such things are not always better than the more simple stories that can be told in shorter books =)

I do not believe in age groups like adult books or young adult and so on, and as a Fantasy writer, I write my stories for all of those that love imagination no matter how old they are.

Too many people believing that if your books are short and not super complex, then you cannot be good...

After treading my post I can see how it could have offended you. That was not my intent & if that did happen please accept my apology.

I was trying to come up with reasons that there are so many YA books nowadays that garner so much attention from the adult demographic.

I suppose another reason could be that a large percentage of people just want to be entertained by a good story & get lost in the tale. Simplicity may benefit those readers.

Sometimes it's nice to not have to think that hard or try to guess what will happen. Above all, story trumps all. I agree with that.

For me to really enjoy something I need to wonder what will come next. That's why I usually don't dig the 1st person POV. You know that that character will survive. The only exception to this that I'm aware of is Rothfuss's Name of the Wind series which has a fresh take on 1st person.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
@Allen Smith: Oh no problem, I was not offended!! I was just expressing my opinion about how shorter books with simple stories can be just as good and sometimes even better than the larger, more complex and "adult" series out there =)

As a reader, what I want are stories that can hook me, characters that can fascinate me and worlds that I can fall in love with- I keep saying here in Mythic Scribes that our real job as Fantasy writers is to take our readers out of the real world and plunge them deep into our own worlds, and stop to worry so much about having a perfect language, realistic world-building and other things that are sometimes given too much attention.

The Hunger Games is doing that job wonderfully for me, at least so far =)

Something funny: In The Neverending Story there is a part when Bastian is forced to stop reading the freaking book and leave his place of hiding because, well... he must go to the bathroom!! Then, he starts to consider that such biological needs are never mentioned in all the adventure books that he reads, that the characters are never said to do you-know-what in the stories.

So far, Katniss has already spent many days at the forests and she has never said: "I really needed to hide between the bushes and do you know what!!"
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
I am ready to start reading chapter 22 now, this book is so addictive! XD!!

The Hunger Games could be classified as a futuristic Science Fiction book, but from my point of view, it has plenty of Fantasy elements in it because the author is describing another world that is different in so many ways to the world where we live... I am really transported to this other world when I read the story, so for me it's kind of a Fantasy story.

Who else got teary eyes in the part when Rue dies??
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Well Kit, it could be a spoiler... but anyway, Rue is not mentioned before the reader knows what the Games are about and by that point, it's hardly a surprise to know that this particular character and others will eventually get killed- I did not mention how it happens, by who or when, so I am not really spoiling that moment =)

Something that I disagree about the world of this trilogy:

The Avox people that are servants at the Capitol as punishment for being traitors, supposed to be completely mute simply because their tongues have been cut out (even the avox word kind of means "without a voice") that makes no sense really, because cutting out a person's tongue will just leave that person unable to articulate words to speak.

They would still have their voices intact, and they would be able to scream and sing without words =)
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
I have finished reading The Hunger Games after crying a lot with chapter 25, today I just bought Catching Fire and I can't wait to start reading it!!
 

Claire

Scribe
I enjoyed the whole series. I like to think of myself as not being a book snob (I have a few friends who seem to hate any book that becomes popular, as if "the masses" couldn't possibly like anything that has literary value), but when this series rose in popularity, I have to admit, I found myself wanting to avoid it. Silly, probably. After my husband and I saw the movie, I realized why the series is so popular - killer concept. Reality TV on steriods - something anyone with a television in this day and age can relate to. I read somewhere that Collins thought up the concept while channel flipping between coverage of the war in Afghanistan and an episode of Survivor. Not sure if that's totally true, but I can imagine...

They were a quick read for me, but I was totally engaged. Katniss is a cool character and the deep first person really lets you see the world through her eyes, and her eyes only. You don't see how other people see her, until the other characters come out and tell her. Interesting perspective. I'm not usually a huge fan of first person, but here it totally works.

I actually did like books 2 and 3. With a fast paced series like this one, I tend to just blast through them and take them at face value, as long as I'm really caught up in the story. Plus, I'm super easy to fool - I never know the twists and turns in a story unless they are really obvious (like, the Matrix totally blew my mind the first time I saw it and I had no idea Bruce Willis was dead in the Sixth Sense, lol). A couple of the things in book 2 threw me for a loop - kept it exciting.

Collins really did some things well. She immediately draws you in and gets the action going from the get-go. You are emotionally invested in the story right away. And even though you know Katniss is going to live (in the first book), you keep reading because you want to know HOW it all happens. And who else is left standing at the end.

All in all, I thought they were well done. I'm sure people can pick them apart and find things that don't work or what have you, but for me, books like these are like great action movies - I want to be swept up, taken away and entertained. I want to live in the world for a while and be caught up emotionally in the story. These did it for me.
 
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Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Claire, just like you I am not really a fan of the first-person style to tell stories (it was part of the things that I did not like after reading the first Twilight book) but with The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins has done it in a way that can tell the story and describe the world where Katniss lives in a very satisfactory detail.

I have also realized that Katniss, her life story, the world where she lives and the entire concept all have a potential to touch the reader's hearts (it did that to me, right away) and it was something that I was not expecting even after watching the movie, because the book really has a much greater impact...

Today I started reading Catching Fire and I already started Chapter 4 =)
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
That's why I usually don't dig the 1st person POV. You know that that character will survive. The only exception to this that I'm aware of is Rothfuss's Name of the Wind series which has a fresh take on 1st person.

I read a book where the first person POV character died midway through, and the narrative was picked up by a second character and presented in third person. I was very surprised by the death.
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Steerpike said:
I read a book where the first person POV character died midway through, and the narrative was picked up by a second character and presented in third person. I was very surprised by the death.

Hmmm I'd like to read that if you can remember the title. Was the effect jarring? Did it lower your immersion in the story?
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Hmmm I'd like to read that if you can remember the title. Was the effect jarring? Did it lower your immersion in the story?

I can go through my books when I get home and find it, though this will be a big spoiler for you now :D I think it was the second in a series, and I quite liked it. I admit that I was disappointed when the character died and it took me a while to get into the second character's viewpoint. I kept expecting the initial character to not really be dead and to reappear!
 
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