Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

68 reviews

naitane's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Blood, Animal death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Child death

Moderate: Mental illness, Death of parent, and Grief

Minor: Vomit

jselliot's review against another edition

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

5.0

Hunger Games ... the book that kickstarted the western obsession with the dystopian genre once again, following on the heels of Battle Royale in Japan. I personally feel it makes a nod to the predecessor rather than steals from it, and both are good for their own reasons. I will hands down recommend this book and the whole trilogy to anyone that asks. (I have not read the prequel yet, so cannot give an aye or nay.)

A craft-level aside to other authors:
I will say that I have noticed in recent years that many books try and fail to copy the first-person present-tense style of Hunger Games. Most of them fail. First-person is difficult enough to write well without annoying a reader. Present-tense is even higher on the difficulty tier. So if there are authors out there wanting to mimic this style, please study it. Underline particularly effective passages. Pay attention to how turns of phrase are not butchered from the time-honored past-tense version just because it is an option. Manually type the whole thing out on your computer from the book. Learn via osmosis on how the style functions, much like you can learn how to flesh out and characterize a setting from doing that with an author like Robin Hobb. It's the writer's version of how artists trace to learn specific things, and is a valid exercise.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, and Classism

Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, and Mental illness

jennabell's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Blood, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Mental illness, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Physical abuse

wallflovver's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-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

5.0

i have read this book about 8 times now, and every time it gives me anxiety. yet i come back for more about once a year.. its just a perfect book 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Suicide, Blood, Body horror, Suicide attempt, Child death, Animal death, Alcoholism, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Mental illness, Murder, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Cannibalism

plueschi77's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Violence

Moderate: Grief, Mental illness, and Alcoholism

lily1304's review against another edition

adventurous dark sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes

4.25

 I was impressed how well the first book held up on rereading, now that I'm older. This review is going to be full of spoilers so I'm just going to spoiler-tag the whole thing:

Even though the Hunger Games is a huge corporate franchise under Scholastic and Lionsgate, it still retains some subversive political themes. Rebellion against authoritarianism and income inequality are obvious. But labor rights are also a major theme, for example, in Katniss' descriptions of District 12 and Rue's descriptions of District 11. Katniss' father is one of many miners who die in coal mine explosions; both coal miners in District 12 and farm workers in District 11 are forbidden from keeping the products of their labor; both farm workers and Appalacian miners were major players in labor history in the US.

There's plenty more here, too, that could become whole essays - the criminalization of poverty, art and performance as political protest, a state-planned economy dependent on violent suppresssion of dissident speech, climate change causing war, the power of a heterosexual love story to sway bystanders into sympathy for a cause, entertainment media as "bread and circuses" distraction, etc, etc. It has the potential to politicize young readers if they aren't too distracted by the love triangle and the game itself.

I found the relationship between Katniss and Peeta to be more believable than I remembered, at least in this first book of the trilogy. Pretending to be in love while enduring trauma together might make me catch feelings for some dude too.

I appreciate Katniss' movites change over the course of the novel from "literally do anything to survive, trust no one" to teaming up with Peeta to win with at least some kind of dignity and integrity. Overall I think she's a more interesting protagonist than many other YA novels.

It's been so long since I've read the sequels, but now I'm curious if they hold up as well as the first one... my suspicion is that they don't. I remember being just as disappointed by Mockingjay as I was Gregor and the Code of Claw waaaay back in the day. Maybe I should re-read those too!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicide attempt, and Violence

Moderate: Abandonment and Mental illness

Minor: Alcohol

Contains detailed descriptions of hunger/starvation and dehydration

martereadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Torture, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Body shaming, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Slavery

Minor: Death of parent and War

ryleighmae's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

books are always better than movies. the trilogy is not a love triangle. it’s about growth, hardship, death, rebellion, fear, and much more. something for everyone to love. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Grief, Mental illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

michellemaas's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Though you likely do not need to be reminded of this: The Hunger Games was a cultural reset.

I don't even have that much to say in terms of a review, other than that this is one of those books everyone needs to read at least once in their lives. The concept, the characters, the world-building was all just *chef's kiss". Okay okay, weird meme-y expressions out of the way, this really was an amazing book (series actually) and I love it so much I can't even tell you what I liked most because everything was just perfect. Would definitely give it a 6/5 if GoodReads allowed it!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Child death, and Gore

Minor: Mental illness

tays_books's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Grief, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Minor: Ableism, Cannibalism, and Slavery