CRSwanson
"I liked this story better when it was called "Battle Royale""
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"Hunger Games" is a young adult science-fiction suspense novel. The premise--sending teens into a game that requires them to kill each other--also qualifies it as a horror novel, in my opinion.
-2
The story was very exciting and fast-paced. For the first two-thirds of the story, there was barely a pause in the danger-laden action filled with unexpected twists. The world-building was very good and brought the story alive in my imagination. The characters were interesting, and there were many very nice characters risking themselves to help Katniss survive. I liked the potential of Katniss more than I actually liked her. She wanted to be nice, but she thought everyone was out for themselves so she rarely trusted others and her main goal was survival at whatever cost.
I read the book because my 12-year-old friend wanted me to, because of the suspense, and because I thought Katniss would be pushed to the point of boldly defying the evil of the Hunger Games. But her main goal was to survive and avoid conflict. Even her minor defiances stayed within the rules and she eagerly cooperated in trying to patch up any damage done by them to The Capital's power. She lied knowing it would be hurtful to someone she cared about and was willing to kill people she liked in order to survive. Only some fancy footwork on the part of the author kept Katniss from facing much moral dilemma about her actions and intentions.
By the time the Feast came about (near the end of the book), I had concluded that Katniss wouldn't stand up against the Hunger Games, no matter how cruel or how much she disliked them. By this point in the story, there were also a bunch of inconsistencies--including a critical one that meant the story wouldn't have played out the way it did.
(Explanation, SPOILER alert: Peeta said that his family only ate stale bread. Thus, Peeta's mother would never have told him to feed fresh, slightly-burned bread to the pigs--which formed the bond between Katniss and Peeta--when his family could have enjoyed the bread themselves. END SPOILER)
At this point, the pacing was also slower so I started to notice things like how fresh, unpreserved meat stayed good for days despite very hot days (it would have spoiled much sooner), how Katniss never thought to use the iodine for medicine when it might have made a big difference, how she hid some knives yet never thought to go back to get them when she needed them, and how she didn't even try to use her weapons when captured by an opponent intending to torture her to death.
In my opinion, it basically fell apart at the end, and I stopped caring about the story. Some readers might not catch the inconsistencies or care as long as there's great action, but I do.
There was no sex. I don't recall any bad language. The gore was left to the readers imagination. The novel was written in first person, present tense. Overall, it was a "clean" and exciting reading, but I was disappointed by the end.
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About the reviewer
Debbie White (GenreReviewer)
I review books, do organic gardening (vegetables, fruit trees, etc.), mentor a young lady, and work with inmates at the local jail and state prison units. I live in a passive solar house (with an active … more
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About this book
The Hunger Games is a young adult science fiction novel written by bestselling author of The Underland Chronicles, Suzanne Collins. It was originally published in hardcover on September 14, 2008 by Scholastic Press. It is the first book of the Hunger Games trilogy, with two more books to come. It introduces sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world where a dictatorship called the Capitol has risen up after several devastating disasters. In the book, the Hunger Games are an annual televised event where a ruthless Capitol randomly selects one boy and one girl from each of the twelve districts, who are then pitted against each other in a game of survival and forced to kill until only one remains.
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The dystopian themes and the original way in which the main character is treated and her rebellious actions at the end rank the book a lot higher than a minus, despite the minor flaws. Good write-up, however.