Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins

I have been threatened that if I did not read these books SOON, I would no longer be sheltered from spoilers. So as my end-of-vacation and holiday-weekends converged, I consumed all three books. I'm going to blog them together but discuss each a bit individually too.

Overall, I loved this series - obviously, I read them all, and fast. Although I had moments of despair, I forced myself to remember that one of my favorite 12-year-old boys told me to plod on ... it gets better. So if he could endure the "which-boy-should-I-choose" dithering, so should I.

• "The Hunger Games" was my favorite of the three - fast-moving drama, unexpected twists. Several times I shouted out loud to myself as I was surprised by the direction of the story. "Romeo and Juliet!" I exclaimed at one point. Nice!

• About halfway through "Catching Fire" I got frustrated. It had deteriorated into Bella Swan territory with the helpless fretting on which boy I should love. Yuck. (Even though I did love the Twilight books) But once the Games began, I was again captivated. I loved the new characters and learning their histories and motivations.

• "Mockingjay" threatened to be just like every other dystopian future fiction: establishing a new colony, reinventing government, chafing at uniformity, etc. And again, once the action began I was swept away. I didn't know what would happen in the end, yet was satisfied by both the events and their conclusion.

Collins does a phenomenal job with the characters in this series. The victors stories were amazing, and kept getting better the more you knew. Even characters that had been present from the start continued to evolve in the third book. You could never just assume you knew anybody. And I thought that was brilliant.

I'll recommend these books - but will add the disclaimer I was given: Keep going. Whatever drags the narrative down will eventually pick up again. It gets better!

No comments: