(Untitled)

[archica]

What I've been up to (last one of these from me for a while since we're starting spring cleaning and fun things like gaming and anime fall by the wayside until we're finished):

Gaming: Working on Devil Summoner 2. Not too terribly far into it since I've been busy, but I think I'll burn through it like I did the first game once I get time to

Comments

[natsufan]

I found "The Hunger Games" quite commercial and with a too-much "hollywood ending". I found Catching Fire better... And I just finished Mockingjay and consider it Literature, with a capital "L". Collins has managed the chance Rowling missed: to start a series as something commercial and just for fun and entertainment, and make the reader "graduate" into thinking deeply about serious and disturbing topics.

Many teenagers love the first book, like the second less, and the third one least. In my group of friends, it's the opposite. We think Hunger Games is the hook-up, interesting but a bit of written candy. Catching Fire starts portraying serious topics, but is still quite "flashy", in a sense. And Mockingjay is where things get serious and readers learn what war and war politics are about. It's a great series. It's the sort of series I'd like to write: start commercial and entertaining, and end up in a blaze of pure Art, the sort that moves people and makes them thing. Even the plot is good, in the sense that, when something looks fishy... it is fishy. Katniss can act like a real bitch (not that she is, but as many survivors, she sometimes acts like one), and the pressure she suffers takes its toll on her.

One of the things I like about Collins is how realistic her characters are. Katniss is a survivor that's suffered need and hunger, and as a result has grown hard. The ones who've never had trouble putting food on their tables, such as Peeta, are far nicer, smoother, kinder people. Yet, precisely because of that, they need the help of the hard ones like Katniss. She reminds me of Scarlett O'Hara, in the sense that she's hard and ambitious and ruthless and selfish, but the supposedly kind people around her need her badly to survive, precisely because they aren't hard, ambitious or ruthless enough to survive (I say supposedly because when the author of Gone with the Wind badly tries to portray Scarlett as evil because she has white slaves, and according to her, black people were "better off as slaves". Of course, after the years, it happens that Scarlett is the least bitchy character of her acquaintance, because at least she's honest about her desires: she doesn't care about the color or source or past or situation of her slaves, as long as she gets richer and they do the job, she is willing to use anyone. She's a selfish slave owner, but at least she doesn't try to get the moral high ground for it).

In any case... I loved the trilogy, or better said, I loved Mockingjay. The traumas and psychological effects of... what happens are very well narrated. They heal too fast, but they are very realistic. I hope to read your opinion when you're finished.

[archica]

I didn't care a whole lot for the first book. It was fun in a pulpy sort of way and was a quick read, but I couldn't help but see it as "watered down version of Battle Royale". I think the second book was my favorite, only because I grew to love the characters assembled there and thought it was the most exciting. It was the one I had trouble putting down.

As for the third book, I enjoyed it and I admired the guts it took to kill off Prim (totally did not see that coming, and the moment was appropriately horrifying). I liked the ultimate ending, but I was a little annoyed that Katniss was basically knocked out for the climax and everyone had to fill her in on how the Capitol went down (which is similar to what happened in the second book, but somehow it wasn't as annoying there). I thought it was kind of a cheap way to do it. But oh well, it can't be perfect.

I liked the story with Peeta (and I thought I would hate it when I first heard about it) and I thought he was a nice healthy choice for Katniss. I didn't like a lot of the new characters, or rather felt that they were not fleshed out enough (the former Capitol residents who were with her toward the end felt pretty flat to the point that I didn't care when they died). I had to laugh a little at the impracticality of someone using a trident in an armed combat situation (sorry, Finnick, I still love you though), and Katniss got dangerously close to Mary Sue territory with how she was allowed to constantly break rules (she even got away with assassinating the new President, the one people actually liked; in reality she would have been killed instantly for that) and was somehow the most important person on the planet even though she never really did much in the first book to start this whole thing (she tricked the Capitol with some berries, how is that so impressive? Haymitch did something similar and he wasn't seen as some icon of the rebellion).

I did like the unflinching portrayal of just how cruel and horrible the Capitol is (wonder how they're gonna turn this into a PG-13 movie). It's refreshing for a young adult book to pull no punches. Overall, I enjoyed the last two books a lot and the story stuck with me several days after I finished. That's the mark of a good story to me.