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Book Challenge #23: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
First, a note: yes, I've ready many books between now and the last time I posted. Most of them were non-fiction, because I was on a fit of not reading a lot of fiction. (I do that, sometimes, when I'm brewing a story idea.) I recently got back into reading fiction, with a vengeance -- mostly YA fantasy -- and I realized that if I went back and tried to blog all the nonfiction I've read between June and now, I'll just never do it. So we'll start with this, which I read a week ago and loved, and I may backtrack to blog some particular favorites.
The Hunger Games
, by Suzanne Collins
I heard a lot about this book and how good it was, and, short version: everyone was right. This book is very, very good.
Long version.
Katniss lives with her mother and sister in District Twelve of Panem, a nation that arose out of the ashes of post-apocalyptic North America. Seventy-five-ish years before the story, the Districts tried to rise up against the despotic Capitol -- and failed. To keep the Districts in their place, to reinforce how utterly the Capitol owned them, the Capitol instituted the Hunger Games, in which two teenagers would be drawn by lottery each year to compete. The twenty-four adolescents are set to kill one another, with only one survivor, the "winner."
This year, for District Twelve, the lot for the girl fell... to Katniss's younger sister Prim.
Katniss volunteered to take her place.
My favorite thing about the book was Katniss, hands down. She's strong, clever, resourceful, courageous, and calculating -- all without losing her essential humanity, despite the horrors of the Game. She's hard and tough and yet has her moments of sweetness and even vulnerability. And she's smart, and skilled -- because she lives on the edge of wilderness, she has unusual skills at hunting, foraging, and making shelter, and those skills are both effective and realistically portrayed. She's just, oh. Wonderful. And wonderful without being perfect -- flawed without her flaws being stupid or contrived. The book is worth reading just for Katniss.
The plot is straightforward but breakneck in pacing -- I read this book in two great gulps: one night I stayed up until I actually fell asleep on the book, and then the next morning I finished it before I started work. It really was a very compelling read.
One of the things that I think was most skillfully done was the relationship between Katniss and Peeta. I really, really, really love that the narrative didn't force Katniss to fall for Peeta because he was a nice guy and loved her. Too often, that happens, and I think it's really bad to reinforce the idea that men deserve love from women just because they're decent human beings and want it. His love for her is very real and sweet and self-sacrificing, and she still doesn't 'have' to fall for him, and I liked that a lot.
And on the other hand I also loved that Collins made me feel that it was okay that Katniss didn't fall for Peeta without making Peeta a bad guy. That would have been an easy road, but she didn't go there. Peeta was in love and hurt and confused and terrified and very sweet and genuine, and self-sacrificing, and so I wound up both cheering Katniss on for remaining independent at the same time I ached for Peeta. Which really is a marvel. No shortcuts on this characterization.
It was all the more ache-y that Katniss had to pretend to be mutually in love with Peeta in order to save both their lives. I knew it was going to hurt him all the more when he found out, but at the same time, all Katniss was trying to do was to get both of them home alive. So the two of them both suffer from it, but without either of them being the 'bad guy.' The bad guy here is the Capitol.
Side note: Oh holy hell, I hope the Capitol gets overturned in a sequel. I wound up hating them with a passion.
Other side note: I spent three-quarters of the book wondering why Katniss, usually so clever, didn't realize that Peeta was actually in love with her -- that while she was playing a role to save both of their necks, he meant it. And then I figured out: she's clever and calculating and very determined, but she's not cruel. Had she allowed herself to realize that, it would have been all the more difficult to play the role of 'girl in love' for the sake of saving them -- so she didn't let herself find out. Oh, Katniss.
The only real qualm I have is that, while some emotional consequences are not flinched from (see above re: Katniss and Peeta), others kind of are. Despite winning the Game, Katniss didn't have to murder anyone in cold blood. She killed two girls who were stalking her with intent to kill, killed another who had murdered Rue (and who meant to kill her), and killed Cato in what turned out to be a clear mercy-killing. And I think that the fact that we don't find out much about any of the other competitors besides Katniss and Peeta, Rue (who is sweet, but clearly a victim), and Cato (who's an entirely hate-able psychopath), glosses over some of the horror. But then, I'm not sure how additional characterization would have fit in, so perhaps it was the best choice.
I was also fascinated by one element of the setting: the technology level. It's clear that the Capitol was able to subdue the Districts by dint of vastly greater technology... but that technology seems to be mainly biotech. Many of the 'weapons' discussed as having been leveled against the district are genetically modified animals: tracker jackers, modified hornets; modified mockingbirds that served as spies. And in the Capitol, various kinds of cosmetic alteration seem de rigeur. I don't have any conclusions about that -- it's just interesting. (District 12 is at a modern-but-very-poor sort of level, as I recall.)
In summary: I really, really loved this, and I have already pre-ordered Catching Fire
, the sequel. Highly, highly recommended.
The Hunger Games
, by Suzanne CollinsI heard a lot about this book and how good it was, and, short version: everyone was right. This book is very, very good.
Long version.
Katniss lives with her mother and sister in District Twelve of Panem, a nation that arose out of the ashes of post-apocalyptic North America. Seventy-five-ish years before the story, the Districts tried to rise up against the despotic Capitol -- and failed. To keep the Districts in their place, to reinforce how utterly the Capitol owned them, the Capitol instituted the Hunger Games, in which two teenagers would be drawn by lottery each year to compete. The twenty-four adolescents are set to kill one another, with only one survivor, the "winner."
This year, for District Twelve, the lot for the girl fell... to Katniss's younger sister Prim.
Katniss volunteered to take her place.
My favorite thing about the book was Katniss, hands down. She's strong, clever, resourceful, courageous, and calculating -- all without losing her essential humanity, despite the horrors of the Game. She's hard and tough and yet has her moments of sweetness and even vulnerability. And she's smart, and skilled -- because she lives on the edge of wilderness, she has unusual skills at hunting, foraging, and making shelter, and those skills are both effective and realistically portrayed. She's just, oh. Wonderful. And wonderful without being perfect -- flawed without her flaws being stupid or contrived. The book is worth reading just for Katniss.
The plot is straightforward but breakneck in pacing -- I read this book in two great gulps: one night I stayed up until I actually fell asleep on the book, and then the next morning I finished it before I started work. It really was a very compelling read.
One of the things that I think was most skillfully done was the relationship between Katniss and Peeta. I really, really, really love that the narrative didn't force Katniss to fall for Peeta because he was a nice guy and loved her. Too often, that happens, and I think it's really bad to reinforce the idea that men deserve love from women just because they're decent human beings and want it. His love for her is very real and sweet and self-sacrificing, and she still doesn't 'have' to fall for him, and I liked that a lot.
And on the other hand I also loved that Collins made me feel that it was okay that Katniss didn't fall for Peeta without making Peeta a bad guy. That would have been an easy road, but she didn't go there. Peeta was in love and hurt and confused and terrified and very sweet and genuine, and self-sacrificing, and so I wound up both cheering Katniss on for remaining independent at the same time I ached for Peeta. Which really is a marvel. No shortcuts on this characterization.
It was all the more ache-y that Katniss had to pretend to be mutually in love with Peeta in order to save both their lives. I knew it was going to hurt him all the more when he found out, but at the same time, all Katniss was trying to do was to get both of them home alive. So the two of them both suffer from it, but without either of them being the 'bad guy.' The bad guy here is the Capitol.
Side note: Oh holy hell, I hope the Capitol gets overturned in a sequel. I wound up hating them with a passion.
Other side note: I spent three-quarters of the book wondering why Katniss, usually so clever, didn't realize that Peeta was actually in love with her -- that while she was playing a role to save both of their necks, he meant it. And then I figured out: she's clever and calculating and very determined, but she's not cruel. Had she allowed herself to realize that, it would have been all the more difficult to play the role of 'girl in love' for the sake of saving them -- so she didn't let herself find out. Oh, Katniss.
The only real qualm I have is that, while some emotional consequences are not flinched from (see above re: Katniss and Peeta), others kind of are. Despite winning the Game, Katniss didn't have to murder anyone in cold blood. She killed two girls who were stalking her with intent to kill, killed another who had murdered Rue (and who meant to kill her), and killed Cato in what turned out to be a clear mercy-killing. And I think that the fact that we don't find out much about any of the other competitors besides Katniss and Peeta, Rue (who is sweet, but clearly a victim), and Cato (who's an entirely hate-able psychopath), glosses over some of the horror. But then, I'm not sure how additional characterization would have fit in, so perhaps it was the best choice.
I was also fascinated by one element of the setting: the technology level. It's clear that the Capitol was able to subdue the Districts by dint of vastly greater technology... but that technology seems to be mainly biotech. Many of the 'weapons' discussed as having been leveled against the district are genetically modified animals: tracker jackers, modified hornets; modified mockingbirds that served as spies. And in the Capitol, various kinds of cosmetic alteration seem de rigeur. I don't have any conclusions about that -- it's just interesting. (District 12 is at a modern-but-very-poor sort of level, as I recall.)
In summary: I really, really loved this, and I have already pre-ordered Catching Fire
, the sequel. Highly, highly recommended.