Reviews with content warning for Murder - The Hunger Games

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Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

678 reviews

emily_ford16's review

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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wren_cat's review

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is one of the biggest books of the 21st century for a reason. The overall plot and message of the book are captivating and very well-conceived. However, I have a few pretty big complaints. First, this book definitely could have used another pass in the editing process. The grammar is below par and the voice of the narrator is…questionable. Speaking of the narrator, Katniss is not a particularly consistent or well-rounded character. Almost none of the characters in this book are,. Especially Peeta Mellark. Peeta was boring at best and insufferable at worst. The half-baked “romance” is the main thing that made this book a solid “meh” for me. Katniss would have benefitted from not attracted to men in any way. Overall, I think the dystopian world of The Hunger Games is fascinating, and the anti-authoritarian message becomes more important every year But in almost every other way, this book falls flat. I do want to know what happens afterwards, but (forgive me, bookworms) I think I’ll just watch the movies.

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madlibs554's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

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daughterofearth's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional fast-paced

4.0

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djy's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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cmhansen97's review

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challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

I hope enough time has passed for me to be able to say this. The Hunger Games is not a bad book, but it is a strange one to me. The writing is not particularly flashy nor will you be wowed by the prose of the text. The story itself is middling. It was part of (and in no small part drove to mass popularity) the craze of dystopian fiction (mostly YA) that entered literature in the mid-2000s, and as a result contains a lot of the same notes that you will find in books like Maze Runner, or Divergent. One of the big problems with this is it also comes with a rather shallow and nonsensical view of government and fascism in general, to the extent it is rather difficult for me to get into. The economy of the districts makes no real sense, the districts themselves are somewhat arbitrarily divided in ways that (again) don't make sense (why would your coal mining district, which would be of vital importance for energy production, also routinely suffer starvation??? sounds like a good way to lose power and therefore collapse your entire system of infrastructure). It is just evident it wasn't very thoroughly thought through, and this is also seen in the portrayal of the capitol, Panem, which is ultimately a poor man's stereotype of Neronian Rome. What is worse is the Games themselves don't really make sense... part of maintaining a stable empire would be ensuring some level of hegemony and a general sense of either prosperity or contentment among the populace. Fascism does, for sure, massacre and target groups, but these are usually hated minorities that the majority agrees should be targeted. So, I don't think the worldbuilding is good.

The characters in the book are also almost all pretty bland. Drunken mentor archetype (check). Well-meaning rich person (check). Main character who has very little actual personality (check). Family character we are meant to care for only because they are family, e.g., Prim, (check). This becomes a bigger problem in the final volume of the trilogy, but Prim is such an underdeveloped non-character I honestly don't feel attached to her, which isn't helped by the fact that Katniss is also very bland, so it hamstrings the whole inciting incident.

The one thing I will give this novel is that the action sequences and pacing are pretty good throughout, and I greatly appreciate that. It does make the novel a satisfying read, even if I find it to be a bit shallow.

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