The Hunger Games
I’m taking a class called “Introduction to Science Fiction,” and our last book was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I was intrigued because I knew this was a current, famous book; it’s rare I read something written in the last 10 years.
I really enjoyed the first book. I took it for what it was: a steamy piece of pulp with excellent plotting and decent everything else. I was truly invested in the characters by the end and tore through the book in two days.
Then I read the second. 3 days. And the third? Probably about a week. My enthusiasm trailed off for sure.
Preface to all of this: my favorite author is David Foster Wallace. The Hunger Games is YA fiction. We don’t exactly mesh. Still, the novel has crossed a line in the culture where it is no longer solely YA fiction, but adults are also critiquing its qualities as well. I will treat all three books at the same level as any other serious work of fiction. (And this is, no doubt, a serious work.)
The first thing anyone has to say about the series is that its depiction of war is a good one. By the third book, all of the characters are broken physically and mentally. As a critic, I’ll say that this was done well and was never completely overbearing. Plutarch has a great line near the end that echoes the message of my favorite dystopian novel, We, that every government is only temporary, and there is no final revolution. Really, the themes here are excellent and work well.
But as a reader, I already know war is bad. I already hate it unilaterally. I don’t think this series changed my perception of war, or that it will become the preeminent thought when I think upon the horrors of war. But I’m excited that young readers will be experiencing this, possibly for the first time.
My first big criticism is the writing. I know, it’s a YA novel, but Collins (slash Katniss) repeatedly explains everything, all the reasons, and all of the analysis that led her to decisions. This isn’t always a bad thing, but it gets Collins stuck in this basic format of paragraph:
This is a statement about someone or something. Fragment of an example. Fragment of an example. Fragment of an example. Fragment of an example.
For example:
The moments begin to come thick and fast and in no particular order. When I took Rue on as an ally. Extended my hand to Chaff on interview night. Tried to carry Mags. And again and again when I held out those berries that meant different things to different people. Love for Peeta. Refusal to give in under impossible odds. Defiance of the Capitol’s inhumanity.
This takes hold time and time again, and it’s distracting. She also lists people that died, but just their names; yeah, we remember who died. If you list their names and something else, then that means something.
The writing all around was sloppy. Time jumps from main plot point to main plot point without any room for dialogue or character in between. I thought this was a good thing in the first book, because the novel moved so fast the pages began to melt away. But as the second and third began to focus less on the Hunger Games plot and more on a rebellion placing our characters in the center, this became more of a problem. There is shockingly little dialogue in the books that deal with anything except plot, and to be frank, Katniss isn’t a spellbinding narrator.
(I found Katniss to be almost completely unlikable - a stereotypical weak female that cries in closets and breaks things when she’s upset (and this is in the FINAL CHAPTER) while also being a cold-hearted, manipulative, killing bitch. There is a point to be made with these attributes, with internal conflict and depression, PTSD, etc., but it’s not even brought up. But this really didn’t impact my like or dislike of the book all that much.)
Summary was one of the biggest problems I had - tell instead of show. There is a HUGE chunk of text at the end of Catching Fire where Katniss is simply told everything that happened while she fainted. Most things could have been inferred, but some are revelations, and there are much better ways than a huge block of text. The same thing happens at the end of Mockingjay, to my chagrin.
But my main problems lie with the characters and the story. My biggest problem in the entire series is that the final half of the final book carries no real significance. Katniss and the rest of her group lead this covert assault on the Capitol, but it does nothing. The rebels, without their help, end up taking the city in, what - 3, 4 days? It occurred to me (this is never mentioned in the book) that they could have created a diversion, but if the rebels could overtake the city that quickly, there wouldn’t be that much the Peacekeepers could do.
This section simply is a way to put her in the front line and kill most of the team. Which, again, is fine. But Katniss never acknowledges that her foolishness (all things considered, the group was driven by stupidity, but I’ll go with foolishness) killed these people - but that the Capitol did. I guess that’s true, but it makes the entire subplot a waste of time.
The reason why many were reading was not because of the war themes, but because of the love story. I dug the story in the first book because it wasn’t so much that Katniss was choosing between Gale or Peeta, but that she was trying to figure out what love was and sort through all of these real/fake feelings. (“Real or not real?”)
Eventually, it just devolved into her picking. (The final Peeta-Gale conversation was laughable because they seemed like they didn’t care at all and were just tired of her.) And this really just sprung up in the final paragraph. I think most readers (it was clear to me at least) figured Peeta would be the one. I think Gale turning into a symbol of war to Katniss was a great move by Collins, both because of Prim and his fighting nature, and he was essentially her. I get that. But by simply making Katniss realize this, matter-of-factly, in the final paragraph, doesn’t make this interesting. It doesn’t mean there was ever any real struggle there, just that there was the illusion of choice created by the author. When it’s been a major thread for so long, that’s a bad move.
Furthermore, Gale is not given any closure. Really, no one is, even Peeta and Katniss. I’d like to know a little more of what they’re doing, especially considering they’re only teenagers. Just a little hint. This just kinda bugs me. But that Gale is never heard from again - that’s bad writing. That we never hear from the Capitol again? That we don’t get any assessment on Paylor (which would be excellent thematically)? Nothing from anyone else but the two of them? Yeah, it was their story, but it’s unfulfilling to get the culmination of a predictable romance and nothing else.
Character development was lacking, as well. Katniss changes in her stance on children, which is arguably a culmination of every theme in the series, so that was fine. But I felt no reason to believe that she would change - in the last chapter, she was still crying in closets and being aggravating. Was it just love? Peeta certainly didn’t change - there were multiple lines early in the book saying he would never be the same, but it seems like he eventually got his groove back. And we don’t know anything about anyone else due to the above complaints.
(Also, about Raising Fire - I hated the second Hunger Games plot but actually really dug where it ended up going. That was definitely the weak link, as Mockingjay had some good thematic stuff buried underneath the rubble.)
I didn’t hate the books; I just thought they were muddled and needed some development. I felt confused after reading Mockingjay, and this is how I sort through things. I don’t read a lot of YA, but I would definitely recommend this to my children. Still, it’s definitely scared me away from future series, especially when the series is seemingly liked across the board by critics and fans.
