Book Review (of sorts): The Hunger Games
I don't actually have too much to say about the book, mostly because it's been discussed many times by other people. But first, an observation and link:
Sometimes I weep for the future. And then sometimes I read stuff like this and weep with happiness for the future. Every time I think the world is going to shit, I am reminded that old, selfish farts die off; and young, energetic kids who aren't yet cynical with middle age throw their surplus energy into trying to fix the damage the old, selfish farts have done. Well done, Millennials. Keep it going.
Which leads me to my main thought about The Hunger Games: wow, does this book take on Privilege in a good way. It's clear and direct without hitting you over the head. I don't know how many kids see the inequities of the different Sectors that way, but that's the best sort of book: one that you absorb ideas from, and then when you read it later with more life-experience, you see where those ideas were put in front of you.
Which leads me to my second thought: this is not a happy book. I cried several times while reading it, but always because I was touched by bittersweet moments of humanity rather than outright sadness. The message "Even in a shitty world, most people still have empathy" is lovely.
Still, the ending left me slightly depressed. With a story like this, you always want it to end in triumph for the heroes. I understand that of course there are two more books and presumably the triumph comes at the end of the third one, but I admit to a slight lack of desire to read the next one. (Oh, I will of course. But I have to give it some space, and maybe read something comical in between.)
On a craft level, the pacing of the book was interesting to watch. The first half, where the story is very non-action-y, is rather more interesting to me. It's full of tension and worldbuilding, both done very well. Once the Games start, the action picks up but, oddly, the pace falls off a bit for me. There's a lot of tramping around in the woods. The events are sequential, but other than Peeta's alliance with the Careers, nothing is as curiosity-twinging as the first half of the book.
Collins leaves at least one gun on the mantel unfired: Katniss's deafness never really plays a role in anything else that happens. Katniss mentions it several times, mentions feeling handicapped by it, but it never complicates the action or puts her in additional risk. Right now I am clinging to the hope that Collins uses Katniss's reconstructed ear in some way in the later books--maybe the Capitol planted some sort of control or tracking tech in her ear!--and I'll be very disappointed if this is the last we hear about it.
The other thing that slowed down the second half is the big ol' romance. For that I will just acknowledge that if I were a teenager again, I would probably have found that much, much more interesting than I do as a cynical Generation X-er. But it did bother me to be reading around bits of the story.
All in all? Yeah, really, really good. I enjoyed it immensely, and my teenage self would have loved this book madly.