The Hunger Games Trilogy...
So, I finished reading the final book in "The Hunger Games" Trilogy...The first book was, by far, my favorite and the third, "Mockingjay" my least. Be aware there are spoilers below.
The concept is wonderfully executed and really, really intriguing. My biggest problems and things I loved with the whole thing are as follows:
1. Prim's death. I'm not saying it should have been a "happily ever after" but I think it was unnecessary to kill Prim in the third book, especially so close to the end. Frankly, by the time we made it a little way into the third book, I was kind of tired of Katniss. She's a strong female character, which is great, but she was a heartless bitch a lot of the time and she went back and forth from being cold and calculating to insecure and needing affection to playing with people's emotions to her "Woe is me, I'm awful, I only get people killed!" mindset. I honestly would not have minded the trilogy ending with mom and little sister making a new life and Katniss either dead or damaged to the point where she isolates herself from almost everyone.
By the end of the trilogy, I really only wanted Katniss around because she was so protective of Prim and until the rebellion was over, they needed their Mockingjay. I didn't necessarily want her martyred or killed, but I didn't care really if she lived so long as Prim did. I did like the vote for a new Hunger Games with Katniss voting yes--it fit very well into what we knew her to be and I like that she realized by the end that it was a mistake to institute a government that would just do things much the same way as the old one had.
2. Peeta/Katniss. I'm all for a little romance, it was a great strategy, it worked well to keep them alive in the Games, so on and so forth...But I disliked the way that it got to be "happily ever after even though we're both kinda screwed up"...First of all, despite the anti-hijacking treatments, Peeta was still incredibly damaged. Katniss was so emotionally damaged that I honestly believed she didn't feel true love and affection for more than Prim. She certainly tolerated other people and genuinely cared about some of them (Gale's mother and siblings as an example) but aside from Prim, she does not seem to genuinely *love* anyone that's living. Something about the whole thing just grated on me. They were star-crossed lovers where she was just pretending and he'd been in love with her forever and then she started to genuinely have feelings for him, but then there was the boy she left behind, only they had to keep pretending and then they really were in love but it was doomed and then he was brainwashed to hate and want to kill her, but miraculously gets better...It's just hard to swallow. If there was going to be a glimmer of hope and "happily ever after" I really wanted it to be that Katniss succeeded in saving her sister and watching her grow up and have what Katniss never did.
3. Cinna. He was my favorite character in the entire trilogy, hands down. Maybe it's because we only see him rarely, but I loved his quiet strength, his conviction and passion for what he did and believed. I honestly hoped that somehow, he'd escape or be rescued from the Peacekeepers. His interactions with Katniss made *her* more likable. It made her softer. I honestly cried a bit when he was killed. I wish he'd lived instead of Katniss. I don't necessarily think his death was gratuitous, it certainly served a purpose but I hated it all the same. Out of all the things that happened in all three books, this was the one that stayed with me and continues to. Rue and Prim's deaths are close behind, but for some reason, this one really, really struck me.
4. Katniss' design team. I loved them, loved how it helped make people from the Capitol into actual *people* and not just faceless bodies to hate. I loved that they were used to illustrate just how clueless they'd been raised and brainwashed to be, how many people in the Capitol weren't necessarily evil, just ignorant. Not unlike Pre-Civil War America where African slaves were "lesser" and "stupid animals" that couldn't possibly have the same feelings, hopes, dreams and everything as the "superior" white man. Certainly some took sadistic joy in hurting slaves, but to most it was just the status-quo, it was what they were raised with and to believe and it never entered their minds to consider anything else. That's how I imagine much of the population of the Capitol to be--silly and air-headed, ignorant, but not intentionally hurtful or sadistic. I kinda disliked how they were kidnapped from the Capitol, we see them used to get Katniss ready for things and then they just disappear again. That was more annoying than anything else though.
5. Gale. I genuinely ended up disliking the character, but I loved how it showed the evolution of his hate for the Capitol, how it drove him, changed him, primed him to be a rebel. It made the mindset of people in such positions very accessible. I didn't particularly like how, at the end it had consumed him to the point it was a major point in what drove him and Katniss apart, but it was very realistic and once there was no longer any chance of a romantic relationship with Katniss, because of their differing beliefs on how things should be (even if they were, at times, similar) I could see how they would grow apart as friends. So, I loved the character and the development of him, even if I didn't ultimately like the character he turned out to be.
6. Katniss Everdeen. I started out loving her. She was strong, independent, capable, loved her family and friends (even if she didn't have the best relationship with her mother) and was willing to do whatever it took to keep them safe. She was a survivor, a genuinely likable character. By "Mockingjay", I was tired of her hot and cold emotions, how she'd be a cold, calculating bitch and then suddenly have these flashes of guilt and self-pity. I honestly didn't care by the end if she lived and if she did, I honestly wanted her to end up alone and a bit bitter. I know she was likely portrayed as she was to show the capacity of humans to survive and move on despite incredibly tragic things and ongoing hardship, but the one thing that kept me cheering for her was the fact that I wanted her to succeed in her goal--to save her sister no matter what it cost her.
By the end of "Mockingjay" the one act that made me like her a tiny, tiny bit again was shooting Coin. Other than that, in the third book, I really, really disliked her character and didn't care anymore. I kept reading because I wanted to see her succeed in saving Prim. I finished the last chapters after Prim's death to see how she dealt with that, all the while hoping she'd end up bitter and alone, an outcast by choice.
This, to me, is a big problem. You're not, generally, supposed to end up hating the main character or being indifferent and ambivalent to them which is exactly where I was by the very end. I honestly think it would've been better if it had ended with her dead, if she had been killed or sacrificed herself. By the end she was so consumed with her need to get revenge on Snow, so jaded about life, put through so much shit, that I honestly could not believe that it ended with her relatively stable, married with kids. It was all just too sweet and neat. I wish she'd gone out similar to V in V for Vendetta--fighting for revenge and revolution. Or have her live but choose to live basically apart from everyone. She was constantly going on about how awful she was, how all she did was get people killed...blah, blah, blah...Just shut up already, go live like a hermit and only see your mother, Haymitch and a few others including Prim who should have lived.
Good trilogy and I would recommend it, absolutely. I may even re-read it at some point, but will it be one of my absolute favorites? Probably not, unless you're talking about the first two books. I'm going to ignore "Mockingjay" because, despite the strong writing and well-developed plot, I really kind of hated it.
So, that's my rant and review.
The concept is wonderfully executed and really, really intriguing. My biggest problems and things I loved with the whole thing are as follows:
1. Prim's death. I'm not saying it should have been a "happily ever after" but I think it was unnecessary to kill Prim in the third book, especially so close to the end. Frankly, by the time we made it a little way into the third book, I was kind of tired of Katniss. She's a strong female character, which is great, but she was a heartless bitch a lot of the time and she went back and forth from being cold and calculating to insecure and needing affection to playing with people's emotions to her "Woe is me, I'm awful, I only get people killed!" mindset. I honestly would not have minded the trilogy ending with mom and little sister making a new life and Katniss either dead or damaged to the point where she isolates herself from almost everyone.
By the end of the trilogy, I really only wanted Katniss around because she was so protective of Prim and until the rebellion was over, they needed their Mockingjay. I didn't necessarily want her martyred or killed, but I didn't care really if she lived so long as Prim did. I did like the vote for a new Hunger Games with Katniss voting yes--it fit very well into what we knew her to be and I like that she realized by the end that it was a mistake to institute a government that would just do things much the same way as the old one had.
2. Peeta/Katniss. I'm all for a little romance, it was a great strategy, it worked well to keep them alive in the Games, so on and so forth...But I disliked the way that it got to be "happily ever after even though we're both kinda screwed up"...First of all, despite the anti-hijacking treatments, Peeta was still incredibly damaged. Katniss was so emotionally damaged that I honestly believed she didn't feel true love and affection for more than Prim. She certainly tolerated other people and genuinely cared about some of them (Gale's mother and siblings as an example) but aside from Prim, she does not seem to genuinely *love* anyone that's living. Something about the whole thing just grated on me. They were star-crossed lovers where she was just pretending and he'd been in love with her forever and then she started to genuinely have feelings for him, but then there was the boy she left behind, only they had to keep pretending and then they really were in love but it was doomed and then he was brainwashed to hate and want to kill her, but miraculously gets better...It's just hard to swallow. If there was going to be a glimmer of hope and "happily ever after" I really wanted it to be that Katniss succeeded in saving her sister and watching her grow up and have what Katniss never did.
3. Cinna. He was my favorite character in the entire trilogy, hands down. Maybe it's because we only see him rarely, but I loved his quiet strength, his conviction and passion for what he did and believed. I honestly hoped that somehow, he'd escape or be rescued from the Peacekeepers. His interactions with Katniss made *her* more likable. It made her softer. I honestly cried a bit when he was killed. I wish he'd lived instead of Katniss. I don't necessarily think his death was gratuitous, it certainly served a purpose but I hated it all the same. Out of all the things that happened in all three books, this was the one that stayed with me and continues to. Rue and Prim's deaths are close behind, but for some reason, this one really, really struck me.
4. Katniss' design team. I loved them, loved how it helped make people from the Capitol into actual *people* and not just faceless bodies to hate. I loved that they were used to illustrate just how clueless they'd been raised and brainwashed to be, how many people in the Capitol weren't necessarily evil, just ignorant. Not unlike Pre-Civil War America where African slaves were "lesser" and "stupid animals" that couldn't possibly have the same feelings, hopes, dreams and everything as the "superior" white man. Certainly some took sadistic joy in hurting slaves, but to most it was just the status-quo, it was what they were raised with and to believe and it never entered their minds to consider anything else. That's how I imagine much of the population of the Capitol to be--silly and air-headed, ignorant, but not intentionally hurtful or sadistic. I kinda disliked how they were kidnapped from the Capitol, we see them used to get Katniss ready for things and then they just disappear again. That was more annoying than anything else though.
5. Gale. I genuinely ended up disliking the character, but I loved how it showed the evolution of his hate for the Capitol, how it drove him, changed him, primed him to be a rebel. It made the mindset of people in such positions very accessible. I didn't particularly like how, at the end it had consumed him to the point it was a major point in what drove him and Katniss apart, but it was very realistic and once there was no longer any chance of a romantic relationship with Katniss, because of their differing beliefs on how things should be (even if they were, at times, similar) I could see how they would grow apart as friends. So, I loved the character and the development of him, even if I didn't ultimately like the character he turned out to be.
6. Katniss Everdeen. I started out loving her. She was strong, independent, capable, loved her family and friends (even if she didn't have the best relationship with her mother) and was willing to do whatever it took to keep them safe. She was a survivor, a genuinely likable character. By "Mockingjay", I was tired of her hot and cold emotions, how she'd be a cold, calculating bitch and then suddenly have these flashes of guilt and self-pity. I honestly didn't care by the end if she lived and if she did, I honestly wanted her to end up alone and a bit bitter. I know she was likely portrayed as she was to show the capacity of humans to survive and move on despite incredibly tragic things and ongoing hardship, but the one thing that kept me cheering for her was the fact that I wanted her to succeed in her goal--to save her sister no matter what it cost her.
By the end of "Mockingjay" the one act that made me like her a tiny, tiny bit again was shooting Coin. Other than that, in the third book, I really, really disliked her character and didn't care anymore. I kept reading because I wanted to see her succeed in saving Prim. I finished the last chapters after Prim's death to see how she dealt with that, all the while hoping she'd end up bitter and alone, an outcast by choice.
This, to me, is a big problem. You're not, generally, supposed to end up hating the main character or being indifferent and ambivalent to them which is exactly where I was by the very end. I honestly think it would've been better if it had ended with her dead, if she had been killed or sacrificed herself. By the end she was so consumed with her need to get revenge on Snow, so jaded about life, put through so much shit, that I honestly could not believe that it ended with her relatively stable, married with kids. It was all just too sweet and neat. I wish she'd gone out similar to V in V for Vendetta--fighting for revenge and revolution. Or have her live but choose to live basically apart from everyone. She was constantly going on about how awful she was, how all she did was get people killed...blah, blah, blah...Just shut up already, go live like a hermit and only see your mother, Haymitch and a few others including Prim who should have lived.
Good trilogy and I would recommend it, absolutely. I may even re-read it at some point, but will it be one of my absolute favorites? Probably not, unless you're talking about the first two books. I'm going to ignore "Mockingjay" because, despite the strong writing and well-developed plot, I really kind of hated it.
So, that's my rant and review.