The Hunger Wars

This is my week between finishing pre-session work (yay!) and heading off to school. I consider it a "free reading week" meaning that there's nothing to research and I don't feel any obligation to learn anything. It's also the busiest week of the year at work, so I don't really have the extra energy for deep and insightful anyway. All of that to say...I finally had time to read The Hunger Games.

Before I give you my take on the book, let me remind you: I only read The Hunger Games, not the other books in the series. I plan to read them, but I borrowed the first one from one of my teachers, so that's all I have right now. Also, I do not plan to watch the movie. To do justice to the book, it will have to be very violent and I don't want to watch children killing children.

Some people have said that it's the most wonderful book ever, and others hate it. I don't fall into either camp. (Side note: What is with people and their extremes? Why label everything "the best" or "the worst"? How do they even decide?) It's not the best book ever written, but it's a good book. I enjoyed the story. It did seem rather predictable in parts, but I'm reading it as an adult who has read a lot of fiction; I think most children won't be as likely to see things coming (although if they realize that there are 2 more books, they might figure out who has to win the games). Even then, there were parts that surprised me not so much in what happened but in how it happened. It's well written, the characters are fairly well developed (hopefully more of the supporting characters are developed further in the other books) and the story makes sense: stuff happens for a reason. I liked it. It's pretty classic underdog literature.

This is what I thought about as I read it: The games take place in a future North America. There is the capitol region (around the Rockies) and the 12 districts (who have to supply a boy and a girl for the games every year and then act like they're enjoying it all, as opposed to those in the capitol who don't have to provide children and actually do enjoy it all). It's punishment for the rebellion of the districts, helps keep people in line, and provides extra food for the winners and their district (many of whom are always underfed, especially those furthest from the capitol...like the main character, from district 12). This has been going on for seventy-four years. And it seems that no one has ever tried to stop it, no one has done anything about the poverty and starvation in the poorer districts, no one has protested the entertainment of making children kill children.

Yes, I get that it's just a book and it's fiction. I also get that maybe people have tried to change things and failed (there are faint hints of potential rebellion in the first book) and this will come up more in the other books (actually, I understand that this will happen in the third book at least). It just seemed very sad that someone could imagine a future North America where no one cared enough to do anything.

Aside from that: it's a good book, and I have no issues with my nieces and nephews reading it.