Due to the movie coming out, well, this week, I decided to go ahead and read the whole Hunger Games trilogy this past month.Starting with the 1st book, I enjoyed it - it had me flipping the pages, staying up waaaay later than I should have most nights just to get to an acceptable stopping point. I did think it was very similar to Battle Royale though... similar premise, etc. But I enjoyed it nonetheless.
By the way, I was Team Gale the whole time.
Catching Fire, book 2... I liked it. Definitely didn't see the twist regarding the Quarter Quell coming at all! And WOW! What a twist that was!
Mockingjay... book 3... I think I'm with the majority when I say it was a bit of a letdown and a disappointment. Most of the book, instead of being shown the action we're either left with the main character on the sidelines or the main character goes unconscious as it starts to get good and we're left with a summarization of what happens - can you say cop out? Don't tell your reader what happens - show them! So annoying... then it's like the author starts offing characters left and right - some we've formed an attached to, however their deaths are so quick and rushed that we don't even have time for them to fully sink in which sucks cuz it feels like those characters deserved more. And then at the end, it's like the author forgot to inform us of what happened to some main characters that she went back after the fact and added in a line - yes, 1 - for a character that was pretty huge in the series. What is that?! I'm trying to keep spoilers out here, however, at one point it really did seem like she was going to end up with Haymitch there at the end, which would have been completely unexpected and a huge (not to mention awesome!) twist, but the author didn't decide to go that route (which I almost would have preferred).
So in short, I liked the 1st 2 books but was a bit disappointed with the 3rd as it had all this epic build up and then we were letdown.
I do plan on seeing the movies though, although I find it a bit hard to believe that the author claims she never heard of Battle Royale until she handed Hunger Games into her publisher... the premise of the books/movies are eerily similar, however The Hunger Games aren't quite as gory.
Have you read The Hunger Games trilogy?
What did you think of them?
I have to say I loved the books, and I did see Battle Royal a couple years ago and saw the similarities but I liked the political side of Hunger Games...and it's even more relevent with the 1% vs 99% issue thats going on.
ReplyDeleteAlso...I was for Peeta from the start, the little selfless baker boy :)