Comments | _thirty2flavors: the hunger games!

_thirty2flavors

the hunger games!

Nov 24, 2010 21:32

So, largely because someone on Mark Reads [the Hunger Games] provided me with a way to LEGALLY ACQUIRE the first of these books, I decided to read.

( Spoilers only for the first one and vague impressions of the second and third. )

books: best weapons in the world

Comments 40

rose_dawson November 25 2010, 02:48:05 UTC

lol I was just looking through the first book the other day on Google Books

I remember she was talking about a cat and she's like "I'm sure he hates me. I tried to drown him, once. Animals have feelings. Sometimes I would come home from hunting and independence, and he would be glaring at me. He catches rats now, which I make for dinner because this book is gritty. I let him eat the leftovers, sometimes. He growls at me less. This is the closest we will ever come to love" and she was just talking about a cat and it was so dramatic idk. The writing didn't ~impress~ me either from the pages I looked at, it actually distracted me.

_thirty2flavors November 25 2010, 02:51:08 UTC

IA, it was like persevering to get to the story rather than drawing me in. The cat part is hilarious. TBH I skipped the first two chapters because I'd read the reviews of them on Mark's blog.

lacunaz November 25 2010, 02:59:12 UTC

I pretty much agree with this. I definitely found myself forgiving/blocking out a lot of stylistic sins as the book went on, which apparently I'll do for a decent story. But I didn't really like the second one (it is much of the same, only slower to start) and I haven't read the third yet so I don't have anything to say about that.

Collins is most certainly not subtle -- okay, Rue is a tiny 12 year old who got sent to the Games and nobody volunteered for her and she's basically Prim, and it's obvious Katniss wants to ally with her because she reminds her of Prim, everyone gets the Prim parallels, we're already there and having tea with the Prim parallels, and then she goes and point-blank says it. Come on, Collins. I would get sucked into the story and then moments like that happen.

So yeah: really enjoy the story, cold feelings about the writing style.

_thirty2flavors November 25 2010, 03:06:48 UTC

LOL IA. Or the moment when she's thinking about Gale and then is like I CAN'T HELP COMPARING MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GALE TO MY TEN-SECOND-OLD RELATIONSHIP WITH PEETA. Or when she's like "I had felt Gale's body before BUT WHAT IS THIS STRANGE MONSTER IN MY CHEST AND WHY IS IT ROARING???" IDK maybe I"m just too old? Like maybe this is standard fare in YA and it just feels off to me because it's been a while since I read the genre, other than the last month or so?

Tania sounds like she basically hated book 2 and she said book 3 was alright. I might just like... Wiki it, tbh. Or just follow along with Mark and let him tell me what happens.

miss_mishi November 25 2010, 06:25:34 UTC

OH PEETA IS JUST PRETENDING TO LOE ME FOR THE GAMES EVEN THOUGH HE'S CLEARLY DUMB AS BRICKS AND HAS BEEN IN LOVE WITH ME SINCE HE WAS 6 BUT ALSO GALE WHO LOOKS LIKE MY BROTHER IS FINE I WONDER WHAT THE PLOT OF THE NEXT TWO BOOKS WILL BE was annoying as fuck

_thirty2flavors November 25 2010, 13:46:26 UTC

I always find "loved you since we were 5 and you did that one thing that one time" plots dull so I was like "whyyyyy". Plus the impending love triangle. Love triangles are some of my least favourite things. Cheap drama, no one cares, etc.

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miss_mishi November 25 2010, 06:22:10 UTC

You have totally summed up my feelings and book 2 is probably 5/10 and book 3 is probably 3/10 so I'm not sure they're worth reading. But Susan Collins totally had a good idea and then fucked it up by being a terrible writer. I completely agree about Smeyer in that she's a shit writer but she had no plot so it was somehow more forgivable because with Susan Collins you actually kind of want to understand the plot as it exists but you can't because there are too many periods so you have to string it together between them like a connect the dots thing.

also katniss pisses me the fuck off. you meet the only characters I like in book 2 (which made me raise it from a 4/10 to a 5/10) but Katniss and Peeta and Gale are all even MORE annoying which is why it's a 5 instead of a 6. And then it all goes to shit in book 3.

_thirty2flavors November 25 2010, 14:08:34 UTC

I might wiki them, or ask my friend, or just awit for Mark to read them. I YouTubed Suzanne Collins doing a reading from book 3 because Tania told me it was hilarious (it was) but it didn't make me that much more curious tbqh. I think I would've liked it better if the book had somehow been wrapped up in one. I'm not sure if they could have totally overthrown the regime in one book, though, which I guess is the issue there.

you actually kind of want to understand the plot as it exists but you can't because there are too many periods so you have to string it together between them like a connect the dots thing.omg yes, there were so many times when I'd be like "why is this two sentences? WHY DO COMMAS NOT EXIST. OR EMBEDDED CLAUSES. IF YOU LITERALLY STRUNG THESE TWO FRAGMENTS TOGETHER TO MAKE A REAL SENTENCE IT WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER ( ... )

miss_mishi November 25 2010, 16:51:27 UTC

Oh yeah I liked foxface a lot and she never got a name. Ugh. I hate it when that happens. But Katniss is just sooooo boring. I just don't care about her at all. And when an author can't make me care about her MAIN CHARACTER I think she's pretty much fucked.

Also I despise close first person. Laziest storytelling device. There's rarely anything good written in close first. And then when you're in close first person and you use that many fragments it just makes your main character seem dumb.

Also I couldn't tell what was going on in like HALF of the second and third books because of the close first person and lack of sentence structure. I kept having to re-read.

_thirty2flavors November 25 2010, 18:34:10 UTC

I imagined Foxface as such an HBIC for some reason IDK.

Also seriously what was with the wolf peopel? Is that relevant ever again? Because it weirded me out and i was just like WHAT IS GOING ON IDGI

I agree. It also means you have to listen to shit about them like, eating and showering and stuff. NO1CURR. Third person is my homeboy.

fauxkaren November 25 2010, 10:23:47 UTC

I actually really love the narrative style. A lot. haha. I don't get the haaaate. I think I love it because it reminds me a lot of post modern novels from the 50s/60s (like stuff by Vonnegut) which I LOVE, except simplified a bit for a younger audience. I love the choppy stule, and I love Katniss. A lot. So I like reading from her point of view. Idk. Maybe I need to get out and read more YA books, but I thought she was a pretty unique heroine. She was unapologetically herself, and the fact that she isn't feminine isn't ever really an issue. Idk ( ... )

_thirty2flavors November 25 2010, 15:46:32 UTC

I see on Wikipedia that she's a television writer, which makes a lot of sense to me. I wonder if she's writing the screenplay for the movie or not. I think the choppy style can work sometimes, but I don't think Collins had the skill to pull it off -- or at least, she didn't pull it off for me. The books are very popular so there must be lots of people who agree with you. But like I said, I'm prejudiced against first-person narration (and depending on context, present tense) so she had an uphill battle. The sentence fragments just threw it over the edge. I have a particular knee-jerk reaction to abundancse of sentence fragments because I used to use them so much when I was writing, I think ( ... )

fauxkaren November 26 2010, 14:34:44 UTC

I see on Wikipedia that she's a television writer, which makes a lot of sense to me. I wonder if she's writing the screenplay for the movie or not.Ah yeah. That makes a TON of sense. She writes like people talk which I totally don't mind. (lol. I also really love Woolf's stream of consciousness style so I do have a weird taste in narration, I guess.) And yep, she wrote (or co-wrote) the screen play for the movie ( ... )

_thirty2flavors November 26 2010, 15:00:31 UTC

I've only read Mrs Dalloway and it was great, but it was the opposite in terms of flow. Woolf's writing, to me, did a better job of capturing internal monologue, and her sentences went on and on and on. I think a big portion of the issue was the sentence fragments for me, even if she'd just punctuated those differently it would have been easier for me to read, but having so many short, unfinished sentences with lots of periods made for a really jerky (for lack of a better word) narrative experience. Which might be what she was going for, but I didn't like it either way. It is written like how I can imagine a voice-over going though, lol.

lol I liked that Peeta's best skill was camouflage from frosting cakes. I didn't mind Peeta, I wasn't annoyed by him or anything, but I wouldn't say I was blown away with affection for him either. In general I just wasn't blown away with affection for...anything about the series, I guess. I'll probably Wikipedia the remaining two.

placebetween November 25 2010, 16:31:44 UTC

HER WRITING I JUST CAN'T. I really liked the books because they were really fast and interesting and different, but the first forty pages or so were torturous. I was like LOL ARE WE REALLY HUNTING IN THE WOODS IN FIRST-PERSON PRESENT TENSE? But once I got to the arena I stopped minding as much.

Do yourself a favor and read the second book but not the third. That is if you're still interested at all.

_thirty2flavors November 25 2010, 16:39:57 UTC

Yeah all the lead-up to the Games, not enough was going on to distract me from the writing. And I skipped the first two chapters because I'd read them via Mark's blog. It worked a bit better during the Games but I still think third person past is the way to go.

LOL SUCH CONFLICTING INFO. My friend told me the second one sucked and the third one was better.

placebetween November 25 2010, 17:16:49 UTC

Well the second one is more games, and then the third one is all about ~the regime~ and Katniss's PTSD so I wasn't as interested in that at all. I guess it depends on what you like to read. The third one also makes the love triangle SUPER heavy and that was too much for me to handle.

fauxkaren November 26 2010, 14:38:44 UTC

My first time reading the 3rd one, I was not a fan. But then I reread it and I liked it a lot more, I think because I knew the plot stuff and I was able to sit back and enjoy exploring all the psychological stuff that Katniss is going through.

The third one also makes the love triangle SUPER heavy and that was too much for me to handle.
I actually think the 2nd one is worse with regards to the love triangle stuff because in that one, you actually feel like each guy has a legitimate shot. But in the 3rd book, at least on my 2nd read through, it feels incredibly obvious where Katniss's heart lies throughout the whole thing. Idk. Maybe that's just because I knew where it was going to end or maybe it's because on the second read through I was reading more for details instead of speeding through for plot.

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