Hunger Games talk

[antennapedia]

Saw the movie yesterday. Read the first book last night and the second book this morning. Am halfway through the third book tonight, but I stopped reading & am not sure I'll finish.

Comments

[secondalto]

I'm reading the third book right now (on chapter 8ish). I really hope I'm not disappointed because I really did like the first two.

I agree that there are problems with the books, but I found out that Suzanne Collins comes from a TV writing background so I think that explains a lot of them. She did co-write the screenplay for the movie (which I have seen and will see again) so I think her experience helped transform the book to the visual medium.

I also couldn't agree more about the whole Gale or Peeta thing. It's extraneous and horribly done.

[antennapedia]

She's got co-credit for the screenplay, I noticed, plus producer credit, so she's making some bank which she deserves. I suspect the medium shift and story tightening required will make for better movies than books for the 2nd & 3rd books. It definitely did for the first.

[willowgreen]

Not finish "Mockingjay"? Gah! Inconceivable!

I loved all three books, so I can't really comment on your objections. But I will say that Katniss does pull herself together before the end of the final book, although the damage remains apparent.

Also -- and this is a serious question -- why should she have to choose Gale or Peeta? They're the ones who are pursuing her, for whatever reason. And by the end of the third book, she's still not even twenty. IMO, wanting her to choose is their problem, not hers.

[antennapedia]

IMO, wanting her to choose is their problem, not hers.

Good point! Now that I ponder this, I realize that the way the book frames this for Katniss is at the root of some of my problems with the third book.

Finished it last night anyway, speed-reading so I could get past the annoying unbelievable combat sections. At least the writer did confront the consequences of the experience head-on. I liked the last segments.

[misswitch]

The librarian at my school said that SC's other series petered out the same way - it started strong and then fell apart, so that seems to be a pattern.

The problems you had with the book were the same ones that I had, plus a dash of how depressing it all became. I was all "We get it, life sucks! Move on!" The key element to the first 2 was hope, and the 3rd book just chucked that all out the window.

[the_emu]

While HG is already one of our store's best-selling series ever, Gregor the Overlander was sitting on our 75% off clearance pile right beside it. I decided to read it to see if it was worth rescuing and pimping, and I only managed about a chapter. Didn't pull me at all.

8^-

[the_emu]

I need to re-read the books

[the_emu]

Oh, and yes, Jennifer Lawrence was fantastic, but I do wish she'd played the character a little angrier, which I think she was in the books. I really enjoyed all the seething resentment that powered her in the books.

8^-

[antennapedia]

One moment I loved in the movie was the moment she gave the three-finger District 12 salute at the TV cameras she knew were there. That was deliberate and angry and a specific message to the outside world.

And yes, more anger would be good.