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A review by thewallflower00
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
5.0
This is the best book I read this year. Two thumbs up! Highly recommended. Why? Combine "Battle Royale" with teen dramas on the WB (with a little "The Running Man" thrown in) and watch the awesome. I've never seen a novel with a stronger beginning - the environment and backstory is established immediately, there's tension from page one, and the story has started before the end of the chapter. You've got a doomsday clock going, high stakes, and not much thinking. And the whole story is totally relatable to high school - I'd almost call it allegorical.
The story's composed in three parts. The first part is where we see our main character, a teen called Katniss living life in the slummy District 13, where starvation and poverty is standard fare. Part two occurs after she's chosen to participate in the District Games, which is essentially Battle Royale minus the backpack & collars and plus the rivalry, because whoever wins gets set for life (although evidence suggests you never live down the scars). This part is where my "The Running Man" reference comes from, because we see the pre-interviews, the training, and the media circus surrounding this young girl. It's where the high school allegory shines brightest.
First people judge you on your appearance. Then you're judged on your chance for survival and given a score, but not told the criteria on which they judge you (may this be like the elite clique giving you your place in the world?). Then you give an interview, but it's Hollywood hype - it's giving people a personality they want to see. Some play the psycho tough, others play the cunning fox. You see, the purpose of this media circus is to get people to like you. If they like you, they might buy you something during the games - food or weapons or medicine. So you've got to get yourself a personality, an image, and suck up to those fans. And it tears Katniss up because it's the opposite of what she is, a hard-working, bitter hunter from the coal-mining district. Now she has to be a dizzy damsel in unrequited love with her district partner. You can never be yourself in this game.
But here the initial inertia fades as the anticipation of the battle seeps through every word. Flashbacks to her life in District 13 try to build her character and romantic tension between her friend and her District partner (who she may have to kill at some point). There's a great deal of her thinking on this, on the consequences of her actions, and what this means to her survival and future relationships. It's not really a problem, because you always want to see what happens next, but it feels like padding.
Then we get to part three - the battle. Here it gets really introspective, because Katniss is on her own, clinging to the trees and looking for food, as she tries to play both the battle game and the media game (the audience is watching her every move, and could decide whether she lives or dies). It unfolds realistically, which is sort of the trapping of this story. Katniss does a lot of wandering, a lot of thinking, a lot of worrying. That's what you'd expect, but it doesn't move the plot much. You find yourself hoping to get to the end of the chapter, where you know something interesting is going to happen. But something interesting always happens. And you watch her alliances and enemies and actions have dire consequences as the plot moves along, and all Katniss wants to do is get out alive, compromising her values and hurting people as she does it.
Then some mutant dogs made out of dead competitors attack them.
Ahem.
All in all, this is a definite must-read. I'm sure someday we'll recognize Suzanne Collins and Scott Westerfeld as the mother and father of modern YA science-fiction.
The story's composed in three parts. The first part is where we see our main character, a teen called Katniss living life in the slummy District 13, where starvation and poverty is standard fare. Part two occurs after she's chosen to participate in the District Games, which is essentially Battle Royale minus the backpack & collars and plus the rivalry, because whoever wins gets set for life (although evidence suggests you never live down the scars). This part is where my "The Running Man" reference comes from, because we see the pre-interviews, the training, and the media circus surrounding this young girl. It's where the high school allegory shines brightest.
First people judge you on your appearance. Then you're judged on your chance for survival and given a score, but not told the criteria on which they judge you (may this be like the elite clique giving you your place in the world?). Then you give an interview, but it's Hollywood hype - it's giving people a personality they want to see. Some play the psycho tough, others play the cunning fox. You see, the purpose of this media circus is to get people to like you. If they like you, they might buy you something during the games - food or weapons or medicine. So you've got to get yourself a personality, an image, and suck up to those fans. And it tears Katniss up because it's the opposite of what she is, a hard-working, bitter hunter from the coal-mining district. Now she has to be a dizzy damsel in unrequited love with her district partner. You can never be yourself in this game.
But here the initial inertia fades as the anticipation of the battle seeps through every word. Flashbacks to her life in District 13 try to build her character and romantic tension between her friend and her District partner (who she may have to kill at some point). There's a great deal of her thinking on this, on the consequences of her actions, and what this means to her survival and future relationships. It's not really a problem, because you always want to see what happens next, but it feels like padding.
Then we get to part three - the battle. Here it gets really introspective, because Katniss is on her own, clinging to the trees and looking for food, as she tries to play both the battle game and the media game (the audience is watching her every move, and could decide whether she lives or dies). It unfolds realistically, which is sort of the trapping of this story. Katniss does a lot of wandering, a lot of thinking, a lot of worrying. That's what you'd expect, but it doesn't move the plot much. You find yourself hoping to get to the end of the chapter, where you know something interesting is going to happen. But something interesting always happens. And you watch her alliances and enemies and actions have dire consequences as the plot moves along, and all Katniss wants to do is get out alive, compromising her values and hurting people as she does it.
Then some mutant dogs made out of dead competitors attack them.
Ahem.
All in all, this is a definite must-read. I'm sure someday we'll recognize Suzanne Collins and Scott Westerfeld as the mother and father of modern YA science-fiction.