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A review by chrisdavis
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
4.0
Finally decided to give into the hype and read this one. I don't read a lot of the young adult stuff, but when I do I generally enjoy them. I was a little put off by the premise to this book. Briefly, it goes like this - at some point in the future America is divided into districts. There is the capital, where all the rich live and then there are the 12 districts. Every one of these districts has to sacrifice 2 people on an annual basis to compete in the Hunger Games. The games are fight to the death with the last child standing being the winner. The Hunger Games is the Capital City's way of punishing the Districts for a previous rebellion. It probably won't surprise you to hear that the protagonist is selected for the games and it is her story that we follow. I don't want to give too much away so I won't say any more about the plot.
The premise of the book sounds a little grim. I read some fairly dark fantasy, but kids fighting to the death is a little odd. To my surprise it actually works really well. I thought the book was going to end up ridden with cliches, but it avoided nearly all of them. Just when I thought I could predict what was going to happen, I was surprised. Being a YA book, it is quite short and certainly moves along at quite a pace.
The main character, Katniss, is really strong and you find yourself routing for her. In fact, all of the characters are interesting and that is probably the best part of the book. As with the main plot, all the characters avoided falling into obvious cliches. If it wasn't for the length of the book, and some of the minimal descriptive narrative, I would not have known I was reading a YA. Those are the best kinds.
As far as the trilogy goes, I am certainly looking forward to reading the next two books in the series. That said, the book did not feel like a trilogy. That isn't to say there is nowhere else to go with the story--there clearly is--however I don't think the story was planned as a trilogy. Maybe it is all just part of the marketing strategy, buts it's a shame the books can't just be described as consecutive stories, without sticking the trilogy label on them. Oh, and this will make a great movie!
The premise of the book sounds a little grim. I read some fairly dark fantasy, but kids fighting to the death is a little odd. To my surprise it actually works really well. I thought the book was going to end up ridden with cliches, but it avoided nearly all of them. Just when I thought I could predict what was going to happen, I was surprised. Being a YA book, it is quite short and certainly moves along at quite a pace.
The main character, Katniss, is really strong and you find yourself routing for her. In fact, all of the characters are interesting and that is probably the best part of the book. As with the main plot, all the characters avoided falling into obvious cliches. If it wasn't for the length of the book, and some of the minimal descriptive narrative, I would not have known I was reading a YA. Those are the best kinds.
As far as the trilogy goes, I am certainly looking forward to reading the next two books in the series. That said, the book did not feel like a trilogy. That isn't to say there is nowhere else to go with the story--there clearly is--however I don't think the story was planned as a trilogy. Maybe it is all just part of the marketing strategy, buts it's a shame the books can't just be described as consecutive stories, without sticking the trilogy label on them. Oh, and this will make a great movie!