The Hunger Games

     One of the series that set the current trend of young-adult bestsellers, besides Harry Potter, was Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. The first book, The Hunger Games (New York: Scholastic, 2008) is rather dreary and unpleasant, as all dystopian YA fiction must be. I think Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower must have influenced Collins a lot in writing these, which isn't saying much. (It's really rare when there is nothing whatsoever praiseworthy in a novel, but Parable of the Sower is one of that rare breed.) The ideas behind this series are good, at least; it is based heavily on Roman ideas of society and the Greek myth of Theseus.
     The idea apparently came while Collins was channel-surfing one day and stopped on a reality show for a few minutes, then stopped for a bit on coverage of the war in Iraq, and those two ideas began blending themselves together in such a potentially-interesting way that she had to see where it would lead. The premise is gruesome and extremely violent, but could have been interesting if she hadn't chosen a first-person, continuously present-tense POV.  And since the narrator is a poorly-educated 16-year-old girl, the grammar is horrible. And so it's awful to read, even though it does match the character. And it has all the pieces that seem like it would make it wonderful - there's an underdog, good battling evil, but the characters are extremely flat, and Katniss, our narrator, is insufferable, both perfect at everything and stunningly clueless. The plot is utterly predictable, too.

   Panem, which used to be North America a long time ago, is ruled by the Capitol, which is a city-state located somewhere around the Rockies. There are twelve Districts which are subservient to the Capitol, and in order to enforce their power, the Capitol holds an annual spectacle known as the Hunger Games, which takes twenty-four teenagers - two from each district, a guy and a girl - and forces them to fight for the death. Since everyone in the country is near the starving point due to some unexplained famine, the winner's district is showered with plenty and he or she becomes a celebrity. Also, these games are televised and it's mandatory to watch.
     So Katniss enjoys hunting. She's really good when it comes to archery, we're told up front. Her sister Prim gets selected as District 12's girl tribute, but Katniss volunteers to take her place. The other tribute is a guy named Peeta, who works as a baker and has a knack for painting. (He's also had a a crush on her since they were five, which is convenient.) They have to convince the only living District 12 victor, Haymitch, to coach them on how to survive. Eventually he agrees to, reluctantly.
     At the Capitol, Katniss's stylist Cinna makes her clothes into inflammatory political statements, which helps attract attention to her as Someone to Watch. (Because she's perfect, and Peeta's in love with her, and that makes a good story for TV. And somehow she hasn't realized this, which doesn't make sense.) Once they get to the arena, people die in lots of gruesome ways, and a whole lot of wasted characters reach their expiration point to the novel's plot, dropping out without explanation. There's a lengthy and awkward "nurse-him-back-to-health" scene, which doesn't fit, considering that Katniss didn't inherit any of her mother's talent for nursing. (This mother never even gets a name throughout the whole series, not even "Mom." But besides serving as a nurse, the only other memorable thing about her is that she suffers from immense depression, because there isn't enough bleakness in this setting, apparently?) Katniss becomes allies with a girl from District 11 named Rue, who reminds her of Prim. Rue is brutally murdered, which allows us to see a (completely unbelievable) tenderness from Katniss.
      Eventually, following an attack by wolves, it comes down to Peeta and Katniss agreeing to commit suicide together so that there is no victor this year. This panics the officials, called "Gamemakers," and they hastily crown them co-champions. Their injuries are repaired by the skillful Capitol surgeons, but their lives will never be the same, given their defiance of the arena's rules.

     Peeta would make a much better narrator, simply because he is naturally empathetic and skillful with using words. Cinna also would count as an interesting character if Collins had dove deeper into his motivation for his actions, but as merely the stylist, he gets shoved to the background very quickly. Third-person would have worked best, because the narration by Katniss quickly become very monotonous and very repetitive. So it's hard to care about anyone. The love triangle between Peeta, Katniss and her hunting partner Gale stretches out too long. And the ending just sets up future books, not really offering any closure by itself. I'm not a fan at all.

#Wesley