More Hunger Gamesss
These books might be the best books I have ever read in my entire life.
I haven't liked a book this much since I read Ella Enchanted in elementary/middle school. Don't get me wrong, I really, really liked things like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I mean, really, really liked. But NOTHING like this. Like Ella Enchanted, which I read so many times the only thing holding the spine together is masking tape. I can see myself doing this with these books. And it's not just because they're relatively short, which is honestly one of the reasons I haven't re-read LotR or HP. Especially HP. So fucking long, I can't stay focused a second time. They're short, but it's definitely not a bad thing. There is some seriously solid storytelling going on here, Suzanne Collins doesn't NEED the extra pages, SERIOUSLY.
And, well, that brings me to one of my favorite things. Everything happens for a reason. Every word, every sentence is not wasted.
(Hey, Terry Goodkind! Literally everything that happened to Richard and Kahlan in WFR was COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY! And repetive. It got really annoying, man. AND WHILE I'M NAMING NAMES--Hey SMEYER! 700 pages of Breaking Dawn?! REALLY?!)
And everything ties together so well by the end, I just FUCKING LOVE IT. And like, right now I'm re-reading the first book and I love how she gives away just the right about of info in the first chapter. Like she doesn't just INFO DUMP everything about the reaping and the Hunger Games at once. She just kind of slowly eases you into it, to make you want more. Not that there aren't any at all, but it just WORKS. (Not like Terry Goodkind, who will have Zedd talk FOR PAGES about shit that could have been condensed into a few lines.) (Jeez, I'm picking on him today.)
BASICALLY I am just in love with Suzanne Collins and fangirling her a bit right now.
Okay and now cause I'm awkward I'm just going to go into bullet points of things I loved/want to talk about (which eventually just turns into a lot of quotes).
- KATNISS. KATNISS EVERDEEN, THE GIRL WHO WAS ON FIRE! I love Katniss so much, how can you not? She's my favorite kind of lady-character. I think she's an excellent heroine. I just love her. Like, you guys know how I go on and on about how awesome my cousin Katie is? It's like that.
A chill runs through me. Am I really that cold and calculating? Gale didn’t say, “Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up,” or even “whoever she can’t live without.” Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the person who I think I “can’t survive without.” There’s not the least indication that love, or desire, or even compatibility will sway me. I’ll just conduct an unfeeling assessment of what my potential mates can offer me. As if in the end, it will be the question of whether a baker or a hunter will extend my longevity the most. It’s a horrible thing for Gale to say, for Peeta not to refute. Especially when every emotion I have has been taken and exploited by the Capitol or the rebels. At the moment, the choice would be simple. I can survive just fine without either of them.
- Gale and Peeta. First of all, I'm just going to copy what cloudydaise said, because I pretty much agree 100% and I don't think I could say it better.
The character I never warmed to was Gale. If she had to pick someone, I'm glad it wasn't him. Gale was too angry. Katniss was an angry person too, but I don't think they would have had the patience for each other. From the way they were written from the start, Peeta was always the one with the patience to deal with Katniss and her myriad of issues. If she'd tried things out with Gale, their anger would have just built on each others' and they wouldn't have been happy. I'm pretty sure that's what the ending is all about, when Katniss realizes she's choosing Peeta because he means life can go on. Gale, I don't think, will be able to really move on. That's why he went off to whatever district to do whatever he's doing for the new Captiol government. It's not a bad thing, Gale is passionate about change and helping people, but it's not really Katniss's thing anymore.
I like Peeta more than Gale, but that's not to say Gale was a horrible, horrible person EVEN THOUGH IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN HIS BOMB THAT KILLED THOSE KIDS AND PRIM OK breathe.
Most of the time I was just annoyed with Gale though, and I honestly never thought the romance with Katniss was ever really going to go anywhere. It's great he wants to make a difference, but he was just so angry and cold. (Though that's totally understandable because of what happened to his dad and you know, I literally just realized that and I think I like him more now.)
I love Peeta though. Like, so, so much. So much. He was pretty much the only one I was worried about not making it out alive. IF HE DIED
But you know, he didn't. So it's all good. ALL GOOD ALSJSLA;FJSAF
- So it’s almost entertaining to see Caesar Flickerman, the eternal host of the Hunger Games, with his painted face and sparkly suit, preparing to give an interview. Until the camera pulls back and I see that his guest is Peeta.
Yeah, I pretty much thought I was going to have a heart attack when I read that.
"THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF MURDER AND A LOT OF INTRIGUE, AND MY LITTLE HEART CAN BARELY TAKE IT NO MORE!!!!!"
- “Finnick?” I say. “Maybe some pants?”
He looks down at his legs as if noticing his outfit for the first time. Then he whips off his hospital gown, leaving him in just his underwear. “Why? Do you find this”-he strikes a ridiculously provocative pose-“distracting?”
I can’t help laughing because it’s funny, and it’s extra funny because it makes Boggs look so uncomfortable, and I’m happy because Finnick actually sounds like the guy I met at the Quarter Quell.
“I’m only human, Odair.” I get in before the elevator doors close.
Finnick ♥ ... ;_;
- “Fire is catching!” I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. “And if we burn, you burn with us!”
Katniss' entire speech in Chapter 7. So intense.
Suddenly, there I am, replacing the mockingjay, standing before the real flames and smoke of District 8. “I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I’m right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors.” Cut to the hospital collapsing in on itself, the desperation of the onlookers as I continue in voice-over. “I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do.” Back to me now, my hands lifting up to indicate the outrage around me. “This is what they do! And we must fight back!” Now comes a truly fantastic montage of the battle. The initial bombs falling, us running, being blown to the ground-a close-up of my wound, which looks good and bloody-scaling the roof, diving into the nests, and then some amazing shots of the rebels, Gale, and mostly me, me, me knocking those planes out of the sky. Smash-cut back to me moving in on the camera. “President Snow says he’s sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?” We’re with the camera, tracking to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse. Tight on the Capitol seal on a wing, which melts back into the image of my face, shouting at the president. “Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!” Flames engulf the screen again. Superimposed on them in black, solid letters are the words:
IF WE BURN
YOU BURN WITH US
I GOT A LITTLE VERKLEMPT, I MUST SAY.
- My father. He seems to be everywhere today. Dying in the mine. Singing his way into Peeta’s muddled consciousness. Flickering in the look Boggs gives me as he protectively wraps the blanket around my shoulders. I miss him so badly it hurts.
♥
- I rise and turn slowly in a circle, addressing the machine guns. “And you up there? I come from a mining town. Since when do miners condemn other miners to that kind of death, and then stand by to kill whoever manages to crawl from the rubble?”
“Who is the enemy?” whispers Haymitch.
“These people”-I indicate the wounded bodies on the square-“are not your enemy!”
I got chills when Haymitch spoke up. CHILLS. I kind of loved that Katniss got shot. It just makes everything seem a million times more realistic. You know that would happen! And I love it! I guess I was expecting them to be all "Oh, you're the Mockingjay~~!" and everywhere she goes she magically changes peoples opinions and they fall at her feet etc etc. BUT IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AND I ASL;FKJSAL FUCKING LOVE IT! I could cry.
Especially at the end, when they were all making their way towards the mansion. You know, typically you would expect her to go in all guns blazing, kill the bad guy, end of story but, oh man. PRIM. I feel morbid for saying this, but it was PERFECT. It was exactly what needed to happen.
- I wrap my arms around his neck, feel his arms hesitate before they embrace me. Not as steady as they once were, but still warm and strong. A thousand moments surge through me. All the times these arms were my only refuge from the world. Perhaps not fully appreciated then, but so sweet in my memory, and now gone forever. “All right, then.” I release him.
L;DJAL;FKJSAF
- “You know why she can’t come back.” Yes, I know why. Because between my father and Prim and the ashes, the place is too painful to bear. But apparently not for me. “Do you want to know who else won’t be there?”
“No,” I say. “I want to be surprised.”
SO THEN I GOT ALL DEPRESSED. BUT THEN...
- I wake with a start. Pale morning light comes around the edges of the shutters. The scraping of the shovel continues. Still half in the nightmare, I run down the hall, out the front door, and around the side of the house, because now I’m pretty sure I can scream at the dead. When I see him, I pull up short. His face is flushed from digging up the ground under the windows. In a wheelbarrow are five scraggly bushes.
“You’re back,” I say.
“Dr. Aurelius wouldn’t let me leave the Capitol until yesterday,” Peeta says. “By the way, he said to tell you he can’t keep pretending he’s treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone.”
I GASPED. OUT LOUD. FOR REALSIES.
- That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?”
I tell him, “Real.”
TLDR IT WAS PERFECT! SO PERFECT I CAN HARDLY STAND IT YOU GUYS.
I haven't liked a book this much since I read Ella Enchanted in elementary/middle school. Don't get me wrong, I really, really liked things like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. I mean, really, really liked. But NOTHING like this. Like Ella Enchanted, which I read so many times the only thing holding the spine together is masking tape. I can see myself doing this with these books. And it's not just because they're relatively short, which is honestly one of the reasons I haven't re-read LotR or HP. Especially HP. So fucking long, I can't stay focused a second time. They're short, but it's definitely not a bad thing. There is some seriously solid storytelling going on here, Suzanne Collins doesn't NEED the extra pages, SERIOUSLY.
And, well, that brings me to one of my favorite things. Everything happens for a reason. Every word, every sentence is not wasted.
(Hey, Terry Goodkind! Literally everything that happened to Richard and Kahlan in WFR was COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY! And repetive. It got really annoying, man. AND WHILE I'M NAMING NAMES--Hey SMEYER! 700 pages of Breaking Dawn?! REALLY?!)
And everything ties together so well by the end, I just FUCKING LOVE IT. And like, right now I'm re-reading the first book and I love how she gives away just the right about of info in the first chapter. Like she doesn't just INFO DUMP everything about the reaping and the Hunger Games at once. She just kind of slowly eases you into it, to make you want more. Not that there aren't any at all, but it just WORKS. (Not like Terry Goodkind, who will have Zedd talk FOR PAGES about shit that could have been condensed into a few lines.) (Jeez, I'm picking on him today.)
BASICALLY I am just in love with Suzanne Collins and fangirling her a bit right now.
Okay and now cause I'm awkward I'm just going to go into bullet points of things I loved/want to talk about (which eventually just turns into a lot of quotes).
- KATNISS. KATNISS EVERDEEN, THE GIRL WHO WAS ON FIRE! I love Katniss so much, how can you not? She's my favorite kind of lady-character. I think she's an excellent heroine. I just love her. Like, you guys know how I go on and on about how awesome my cousin Katie is? It's like that.
A chill runs through me. Am I really that cold and calculating? Gale didn’t say, “Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up,” or even “whoever she can’t live without.” Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the person who I think I “can’t survive without.” There’s not the least indication that love, or desire, or even compatibility will sway me. I’ll just conduct an unfeeling assessment of what my potential mates can offer me. As if in the end, it will be the question of whether a baker or a hunter will extend my longevity the most. It’s a horrible thing for Gale to say, for Peeta not to refute. Especially when every emotion I have has been taken and exploited by the Capitol or the rebels. At the moment, the choice would be simple. I can survive just fine without either of them.
- Gale and Peeta. First of all, I'm just going to copy what cloudydaise said, because I pretty much agree 100% and I don't think I could say it better.
The character I never warmed to was Gale. If she had to pick someone, I'm glad it wasn't him. Gale was too angry. Katniss was an angry person too, but I don't think they would have had the patience for each other. From the way they were written from the start, Peeta was always the one with the patience to deal with Katniss and her myriad of issues. If she'd tried things out with Gale, their anger would have just built on each others' and they wouldn't have been happy. I'm pretty sure that's what the ending is all about, when Katniss realizes she's choosing Peeta because he means life can go on. Gale, I don't think, will be able to really move on. That's why he went off to whatever district to do whatever he's doing for the new Captiol government. It's not a bad thing, Gale is passionate about change and helping people, but it's not really Katniss's thing anymore.
I like Peeta more than Gale, but that's not to say Gale was a horrible, horrible person EVEN THOUGH IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN HIS BOMB THAT KILLED THOSE KIDS AND PRIM OK breathe.
Most of the time I was just annoyed with Gale though, and I honestly never thought the romance with Katniss was ever really going to go anywhere. It's great he wants to make a difference, but he was just so angry and cold. (Though that's totally understandable because of what happened to his dad and you know, I literally just realized that and I think I like him more now.)
I love Peeta though. Like, so, so much. So much. He was pretty much the only one I was worried about not making it out alive. IF HE DIED
But you know, he didn't. So it's all good. ALL GOOD ALSJSLA;FJSAF
- So it’s almost entertaining to see Caesar Flickerman, the eternal host of the Hunger Games, with his painted face and sparkly suit, preparing to give an interview. Until the camera pulls back and I see that his guest is Peeta.
Yeah, I pretty much thought I was going to have a heart attack when I read that.
"THERE HAS BEEN A LOT OF MURDER AND A LOT OF INTRIGUE, AND MY LITTLE HEART CAN BARELY TAKE IT NO MORE!!!!!"
- “Finnick?” I say. “Maybe some pants?”
He looks down at his legs as if noticing his outfit for the first time. Then he whips off his hospital gown, leaving him in just his underwear. “Why? Do you find this”-he strikes a ridiculously provocative pose-“distracting?”
I can’t help laughing because it’s funny, and it’s extra funny because it makes Boggs look so uncomfortable, and I’m happy because Finnick actually sounds like the guy I met at the Quarter Quell.
“I’m only human, Odair.” I get in before the elevator doors close.
Finnick ♥ ... ;_;
- “Fire is catching!” I am shouting now, determined that he will not miss a word. “And if we burn, you burn with us!”
Katniss' entire speech in Chapter 7. So intense.
Suddenly, there I am, replacing the mockingjay, standing before the real flames and smoke of District 8. “I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I’m right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors.” Cut to the hospital collapsing in on itself, the desperation of the onlookers as I continue in voice-over. “I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there’s a cease-fire, you’re deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do.” Back to me now, my hands lifting up to indicate the outrage around me. “This is what they do! And we must fight back!” Now comes a truly fantastic montage of the battle. The initial bombs falling, us running, being blown to the ground-a close-up of my wound, which looks good and bloody-scaling the roof, diving into the nests, and then some amazing shots of the rebels, Gale, and mostly me, me, me knocking those planes out of the sky. Smash-cut back to me moving in on the camera. “President Snow says he’s sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?” We’re with the camera, tracking to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse. Tight on the Capitol seal on a wing, which melts back into the image of my face, shouting at the president. “Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!” Flames engulf the screen again. Superimposed on them in black, solid letters are the words:
IF WE BURN
YOU BURN WITH US
I GOT A LITTLE VERKLEMPT, I MUST SAY.
- My father. He seems to be everywhere today. Dying in the mine. Singing his way into Peeta’s muddled consciousness. Flickering in the look Boggs gives me as he protectively wraps the blanket around my shoulders. I miss him so badly it hurts.
♥
- I rise and turn slowly in a circle, addressing the machine guns. “And you up there? I come from a mining town. Since when do miners condemn other miners to that kind of death, and then stand by to kill whoever manages to crawl from the rubble?”
“Who is the enemy?” whispers Haymitch.
“These people”-I indicate the wounded bodies on the square-“are not your enemy!”
I got chills when Haymitch spoke up. CHILLS. I kind of loved that Katniss got shot. It just makes everything seem a million times more realistic. You know that would happen! And I love it! I guess I was expecting them to be all "Oh, you're the Mockingjay~~!" and everywhere she goes she magically changes peoples opinions and they fall at her feet etc etc. BUT IT DOESN'T HAPPEN AND I ASL;FKJSAL FUCKING LOVE IT! I could cry.
Especially at the end, when they were all making their way towards the mansion. You know, typically you would expect her to go in all guns blazing, kill the bad guy, end of story but, oh man. PRIM. I feel morbid for saying this, but it was PERFECT. It was exactly what needed to happen.
- I wrap my arms around his neck, feel his arms hesitate before they embrace me. Not as steady as they once were, but still warm and strong. A thousand moments surge through me. All the times these arms were my only refuge from the world. Perhaps not fully appreciated then, but so sweet in my memory, and now gone forever. “All right, then.” I release him.
L;DJAL;FKJSAF
- “You know why she can’t come back.” Yes, I know why. Because between my father and Prim and the ashes, the place is too painful to bear. But apparently not for me. “Do you want to know who else won’t be there?”
“No,” I say. “I want to be surprised.”
SO THEN I GOT ALL DEPRESSED. BUT THEN...
- I wake with a start. Pale morning light comes around the edges of the shutters. The scraping of the shovel continues. Still half in the nightmare, I run down the hall, out the front door, and around the side of the house, because now I’m pretty sure I can scream at the dead. When I see him, I pull up short. His face is flushed from digging up the ground under the windows. In a wheelbarrow are five scraggly bushes.
“You’re back,” I say.
“Dr. Aurelius wouldn’t let me leave the Capitol until yesterday,” Peeta says. “By the way, he said to tell you he can’t keep pretending he’s treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone.”
I GASPED. OUT LOUD. FOR REALSIES.
- That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that. So after, when he whispers, “You love me. Real or not real?”
I tell him, “Real.”
TLDR IT WAS PERFECT! SO PERFECT I CAN HARDLY STAND IT YOU GUYS.