Sunday 10 February 2013

The Hunger Games

I'm a bit late to the party but I have finally read the Hunger Games books, and thought it was worth a brief appearance on the blog!

I didn't know much about them before starting, other than that there is a film which I haven't seen, but they were recommended so I thought I'd give it a go.

There are three books in the series, which I have devoured within about a week, so they are certainly compelling. I think they're aimed at the young adult audience, although I think the casual brutality within them would have upset me when I was 16...or maybe not. The books are set in a post-apocalyptic society type scenario - life as we knew it has ended, and the country (world??) is organised into a series of districts, each responsible for producing certain products for the central ruling Capitol. Life is hard in the districts, under military rule, as they are still being punished for an earlier rebellion; in contrast, life in the Capitol is hedonistic, brash, and excessive. Communications, movements and purchasing are strictly controlled. As further punishment for their rebellion, each year a random ballot selects two teenagers (one boy, one girl) from each district to participate in the Hunger Games...a televised battle to the death in a closely controlled and manipulated environment. Only the winner survives.

The books then follow Katniss Everdeen, from district 12, as she volunteers to take her younger sister's place in the games. It's actually hard to say much more about books two and three without giving book one away!! In story terms, the trilogy is gripping and absorbing. The first book is the strongest; I felt that the author had had one really good idea, and decided to extend it further without the complexity of planning and nuances of story continuing beyond the first. However, the others were very readable too. It's not high literature - it's well written, as these things go, and carefully plotted, but you wouldn't read them again and again for the pleasure of the prose.

The strength, for me, was that I started to care about the characters very early on, and there is enough peril to keep you hooked in...you're never quite sure whether they're all going to survive until the end. On that note, there is a lot of violence and death, which is not normally something I'm particularly comfortable with in books, but there is a strong moral (not moralising) tone to the series which indicates that it is not acceptable...but it is accepted.

I enjoyed it, but am not sure I'll be rushing to see the film or read it again!