The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) in Easley Library Bookworms

Mar 19, 2012 Werner rated it it was amazing

Shelves: action-heroines, science-fiction

Note, September 5, 2015 --I edited this review just now to correct two misspelled words.

For me, the extremely dark premise of this novel, as set out in the Goodreads description above, was a deterrent to reading it. While I'm a fan of brave heroines who can physically fight the forces of (adult) evil, the dynamic is different when the heroine we're asked to root for is thrown into an arena with 23 other 12-18 year old kids and told that only one can come out alive, all for the entertainment of a Note, September 5, 2015 --I edited this review just now to correct two misspelled words.

For me, the extremely dark premise of this novel, as set out in the Goodreads description above, was a deterrent to reading it. While I'm a fan of brave heroines who can physically fight the forces of (adult) evil, the dynamic is different when the heroine we're asked to root for is thrown into an arena with 23 other 12-18 year old kids and told that only one can come out alive, all for the entertainment of adult sickos, and for the intimidation of their home districts. It's to Collins' credit as an author that she takes this premise and molds it into a tale that's profoundly morally conscious, and testifies to the strength of the human spirit and humane feelings. The book definitely does not pander to the tastes of the kind of people who would relish seeing (or visualizing) teens and pre-teens forced to kill each other.

It does bring us face-to-face with gut-wrenching ethical questions. Would YOU volunteer to put yourself into that arena, to save a sibling? How far would you go to keep yourself alive in that setting? How far should you go? Would you take the lives of other innocents, who didn't want to be there any more than you do --but who will also be viewing you as someone who has to die if they're going to live? (Granted, not all these kids are so innocent --the Career tributes tend to be volunteers who like the idea of killing to win a life of wealth and ease; they're sadistic sociopaths now, who'd likely grow up to be adult sadistic sociopaths. But they're still kids at the moment, realistically shaped by a very brutal society.) Would you kill someone you genuinely like, who's not trying to hurt you? Would you kill someone who loves you? Someone YOU love? Could you accept your own death voluntarily, or even commit suicide? These questions aren't academic for Katniss, and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta. The thing that changes this book from the total downer it could have been to one that's in a real way uplifting is the fact that Collins' main characters, and some others, don't check their sense of decency and their humanity at the arena entrance; they try to retain both, and manage to display both, as a light against the pitch black darkness of the situation. "I don't want them to change me in there," Peeta says at one point. "Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not." At a fundamental level, this is a book about not becoming a monster, in the face of a social order that's out to make you one.

That social order is another major theme of the book. We're looking here at a future America where the government is a completely self-serving law unto itself, which has subjects (not citizens) with, as far as it's concerned, no intrinsic rights, and which has no regard at all for human life as such; a society where inequalities of wealth and power are maintained by the vicious use of unrestrained force, and where the enormous resources of society are wasted on frivolous and even harmful projects while the working populace lacks basic medical care and is stalked by starvation. It's an America where dissent is criminalized and intimidated into silence, where the economic order is a dead-end of peonage and servitude for all but a few, with no hope of advancement, and where real human beings are simply grist for an entertainment industry that's all about manipulation and exploitation, without any concern for the human cost. An argument has been made to the effect that this novel isn't a true dystopian novel like 1984 or Brave New World because the people of Panem aren't that badly off (though I suspect they'd dispute that!), and because Collins supposedly doesn't clearly articulate what present-day trends she sees as setting the stage for this future. I would submit that every tendency described above is already present in our time in germinal form. If Collins doesn't explicitly articulate how pre-apocalyptic America --where the ultimate expression of these trends is restrained by (waning) morality, a vestigial Constitution and somewhat contested elections, even if they're manipulated-- devolves into her post-apocalyptic America where all restraints are removed, maybe it's because she prefers to let us connect the dots.

For the type of plot and premise we have here, this isn't as grisly and gory as it could be; Collins shows us the ugliness and viciousness of the Games and their human cost, but she shows restraint in direct description, so that this doesn't become the "pornography of violence" the Capitol residents (and some of their present-day counterparts) revel in. There's no bad language or unwholesome sexual content. The writing is compulsively readable, a page-turner with no dull moments, and the situation and events make it one of the most evocative reads I've ever experienced --painful, harrowing, terrible and beautiful. Collins chooses to write through Katniss' eyes, in first-person present; this puts us right inside the protagonist's head and gives the narrative an immediacy that grabs you by the throat. To my surprise, it didn't feel gimmicky or awkward at all, but flowed like a stream --or, more accuately, a whitewater torrent!-- from the opening sentence. Katniss and Peeta are wonderfully realized characters, whom I found wholly believable, liked, admired and rooted for from the get-go.

In the view of some of my Goodreads friends who've read the whole trilogy, the third book really pulls the entire series down, and ruins the portrait of Katniss that Collins constructed earlier. But be that as it may, this first book is, by itself, a powerful and compelling read that I would highly recommend. ...more

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Dec 30, 2010 Crystal rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

I am pleased with the book. It kept me interested and was intense but appropriate for YA audiences. Not too much gore but enought to keep the thrill seeking reading interested. I was interested in the comparisons of regions and our pockets of societies. I don't know much about Collins but I will read the next book to see how the story progresses. I have actually listened to this while doing other tasks so I like that I've not "wasted" precious time. Yet, reading this book has been far better tha ...more

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