BookTalk.org

Yes, I have followed the hype and picked up The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Initial reactions: This is fenomenal plotting. Suzanne Collins clearly (unless she's a born plotting genious) have spent a lot of time thinking out the plot, the characters and environment/setting before sitting down to write.

This makes excellent reading, page turning, since you're constantly surprised.

But it is a horrible story... Really brutal and dark. Is this young adult litterature? Huha!

Have you read it?
Are you thinking about reading it?
Would you never even consider it?

I have read the first two books and I enjoyed them. The books do have a dark subject matter in fact everything is dark except for the Capital and that spark in the main character. I loved the disscriptions of the wild fashion worn in the Capital.

I have read all three books (Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay). Haven't see the movie. I can tell you it gets darker. But it was hard to put down.

i just tried to watch the movie but couldn't. never like seeing submission to tyranny, now where is my $20 ice cream at nom nom

i did like the line at the beginning where the cute guy said, if no one watches they lose.

Saw the movie. Am going to have to wait a bit to take on the book. I read other literature and then slip in one that is this dark, and then go back to reading other types of books.

I saw "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" and I am also waiting to read that book. While I can appreciate the talent of these authors, I just can't always read too many of them in a row.

They tend to depress me and lead me to "the dark side" myself!!! Don't want to end up like Darth Vader in Star Wars!!! A total convert!!!

I just finished reading the third one (Mockingjay) a few days ago. I really enjoyed the series but it was rather dark. My first was reaction was "How is this a kids book?". I loved the story and the characters. I had to stagger my reading of them though. After each one I had to wait a week or two to start the next one.

I never read books that become wildly popular

I have no idea why

I have the same problem or tendensies, if it is a problem...

I thought I was the last one to read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, but I guess you haven't read it yet

But guess what, I really liked the code AND this one is also, in my humble opinion, great.

Sometimes popular = not so good, just hyped
but then once in a while popular = very good.

Olivia22 wrote:I just finished reading the third one (Mockingjay) a few days ago. I really enjoyed the series but it was rather dark. My first was reaction was "How is this a kids book?". I loved the story and the characters. I had to stagger my reading of them though. After each one I had to wait a week or two to start the next one.

I don't understand what makes this book series specially dark. Lord of the flies is more troubling to me than Hunger Games..
The violence isn't excessively graphic, the situations aren't embarrassingly pornographic or over the top gratuitously gruesome, some of the characters are screwed up yes, but they seem humane enough... so what is it? Heck, the last two harry potter books are darker than this.
I'm just asking: What about the book was dark in your eyes?
EDIT: Ok.. after thinking about it, I guess the book is chock full of graphic violence directed at children.. and many of the deaths are far from gratuitous, making it easier to feel the impact.

That being said, I have to say I liked this book series. And watching the movie brought into focus just how much I liked it. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the movie's that great... Peeta and Katniss could've been cast a lot better, Haymitch is all wrong in my eyes (They've made him too goody goody, and far too communicative) and far too much of the subtext in the book has been lost or altered... Suffice to say I don't consider this movie a masterpiece in any sense. In fact, I'd have to say the movie made me realize how much I liked the books because of all the stuff it left out.

Seeing the tributes being defined only tangentially in the movie, seeing them so small and human made me realize the mysterious, mythical aura their presence has in the books. The Bullyish Careers, Glimmer a heartless assassin with gold blond hair and emerald green eyes, Thresh the unknown, a giant hiding in golden fields, Foxface the cunning, the Cripple kept alive for his mysterious skill, Rue so small and bird like, ready to take flight and hidden among the trees.... their appearance in the book is brief, yet their presence is well felt.
...And then seeing the "thank you" extended to Katniss by her district as a sort of "three fingered salute" jarred with my understanding of its significance.
Katniss singing, the mockingjays whistling instead of singing, the relationships with Haymitch and Peeta, the drabness of capitol fashion, the absence of unity as a symbol of rebellion... and surprisingly how incosequential Stanley Tucci and Woody Harrelson (downright bad, to be honest) were in their roles... all of these things sort made me feel really bad about the movie.

Apart from that, I started to see some of the associated symbolism. The special significance of song as a symbol of freedom, the mockingjay as a symbol of repressed speech, the different depictions of evil as seen in the dichotomy between the districts and the capitol, in Coin, in Snow and to a lesser degree in Haymitch and Gale...I realized the book is filled with meaning... and I decided that I liked it. And let's face it, it's a page turner. It's a good, exciting, intense story well told, filled with great characters that are easy to either look up to, despise or empathize with. It's also filled with a lot of food for thought concerning the nature of evil and the nature of people and our society, although this isn't as obvious as everything else..
Even if the book is unnecessarily literal in its symbolism, it is more fantasy than sci-fi, its plot is at times contrived, and its hard to stop thinking about how much of the author permeates Katniss and her relationships, specially since Katniss' own narration sounds far too mature, controlled and meditated to actually be her, a point that constantly brought me out of the story.... even with this, I consider this a book worth reading.

VMLM wrote:

Olivia22 wrote:I just finished reading the third one (Mockingjay) a few days ago. I really enjoyed the series but it was rather dark. My first was reaction was "How is this a kids book?". I loved the story and the characters. I had to stagger my reading of them though. After each one I had to wait a week or two to start the next one.

I don't understand what makes this book series specially dark. Lord of the flies is more troubling to me than Hunger Games..
The violence isn't excessively graphic, the situations aren't embarrassingly pornographic or over the top gratuitously gruesome, some of the characters are screwed up yes, but they seem humane enough... so what is it? Heck, the last two harry potter books are darker than this.
I'm just asking: What about the book was dark in your eyes?
EDIT: Ok.. after thinking about it, I guess the book is chock full of graphic violence directed at children.. and many of the deaths are far from gratuitous, making it easier to feel the impact.

The Hunger Games reminded me of a short story I read in high school called "The Most Dangerous Game" (Richard Connell), which is the story of one man hunting another. The idea of a man being hunted by another man like a man would hunt an animal and, as the reader, you know that it's a hunt to the death is, I believe, a very dark idea. In The Hunger Games I think this darkness is heightened because both the hunters and the hunted are children and, along with the apparent inequity of the opponents, I think makes the story quite dark. The comparisons with Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are interesting and I think quite appropriate. The distinction I see is that the plot of The Hunger Games is built specifically on a hunt to the death scenario where the other stories have plots where this 'hunt' is secondary to other aspects of the plot. I think VMLM's comments on symbolism are very good, there is more to Hunger Games than meets the eye. In my opinion, Hunger Games is a young adult book, by 21st century standards, but I don't think its appropriate for younger children.