Book Review - Hunger Games

I may just be the last reader I know to read this book.  I've been aware of them for awhile, even buying the first two books of the series for my nephew's birthday last year, but once I heard that each installment ends in a cliff-hanger and the final book was coming out this summer, I decided to wait until I could have instant gratification instead of waiting months and months for a resolution.

It's a dangerous thing, waiting, when the world seems caught up in doing something.  Of course, there is the natural anxiety that comes when you feel like you're being left behind or not "in the know" but, even worse, there is always a risk of accidentally learning how the book ends when a book is as popular as this one is.  Because that would have turned me off from reading these books forever, I diligently avoided reading any reviews of this book, or any of the sequels.

All I knew was that this was a book about teenagers killing other teenagers for sport and survival.  Huh.  That description did not help me understand the mania surrounding this book.  O.K.  Perhaps that dystopian angle would appeal to its intended audience, teenagers, but why so many adult females seemed equally enamored was the real head scratcher.

I get it now.  We grown-ups love a good love triangle.  And by good, I mean where two worthy and likable males want the same female.  I'm not sure we'd be nearly as interested if one of the guys was a cad or two girls were after the same guy, because those are not nearly as enjoyable fantasies.  But the oh-I-just-can't-decide-between-these-two-because-I-like-them-both-and-I-don't-want-to-hurt-anyone-and-they are-equally-attractive-and-devoted dilemma?  Yeah...I'll take that conflict.

I'm making it sound like Twilight, which isn't fair.  It is so much better than Twilight.  The romantic subplot, while present, is not the story's focus What is, is a disturbing and depressing look at what fear induces good people to do and how death might not be the worst thing a young person will face in his or her life.  Katniss Everdeen, the strong and stoic sixteen year-old girl who volunteers to take her twelve year-old sister's place as District Twelve's tribute in the annual Hunger Games, realizes this very thing as dying would be a lot easier than illegally hunting in her district's nearby woods to feed her family or taking a young girl's life to preserve her own or defying a government with the power to take away her family's fragile sense of security.

Although it has violent themes, none of the violence seems gratuitous.  In fact, I was surprised by how little it disturbed me.  Maybe it was the science fiction and distant future feel that removed my personal horror, but I thought the book worked  both as entertaining story-telling as well as one containing an important message.

We, the people.  We, the people.  When our leaders stop being part of the "we" and become the "them" the authority they hold shifts from being given to being taken.   Panem, the futuristic society consisting of the all-powerful Capitol surrounded by thirteen isolated and subservient districts, is an us vs. them model.  What is protection and what is tyranny?  What is rebellion and what is doing the right thing?   I enjoy a book that is not afraid of throwing around a little bit of moral weight.  As long, I suppose, as I approve of what is being tossed around.

I enjoyed this and think it deserves every bit of hype it has received. (I also started this on Friday so it's counting as my daily snippet:))