The third and final installment of the Hunger Games series concludes the story decisively. In my opinion, this was the weakest of the series for a variety of reasons.
While I appreciate the intensity of the characters being driven insane by their adventures, their lack of agency in a lot of what they do and what happens to them is really frustrating. This plays into the fact that this is not and never was a rebellion that belonged to Katniss, she just played a small part in it.
Perhaps I read the first two books wrong. I interpreted the scenes involving beauticians and fashion in the first two to be examples of the celebrity obsessed decadence of the Capitol as a mirror to the subsistence of the districts. In this book, her primary contribution to the war effort isn't in her physical ability to kill without peer... it isn't in her brilliant mind or vicious personality... it's her appearance in front of a camera, and once again things like outfits, presentation, and inspiring emotions through acting matter more than anything else.
New characters keep being introduced, but we keep failing to get to know them as well as we used to. People like Boggs, Messalla, Jackson, Homes, Castor, McGillicutty, and Cressida are all people in it and I couldn't tell you one character trait of any of them. We meet Finnick's friend Annie and I think she gets a single sentence of characterization. Heck, we finally really meet Gale and pretty much all we ever learn about him is that he's an asshole.
Most of the interesting and formidable problems introduced in the Hunger Games with formulating this rebellion were solved outside the character's understanding or control. We're told their actions had relevance, but except for one or two moments in the book seem to actually hinge on their participation. The characters we know don't arm the districts, communicate between them, mobilize them in an organized fashion, plan an overall strategy, or anything like that. Most of their time is spent hallucinating in hospital beds.
The... thing... that Coin may or may not have done (to use Emma's terminology) just doesn't make sense, no matter how you slice it. Neither side had a good motivation for doing it, and had no reason to expect it to even work if they had. It was just necessary for the book to reach the final conclusion and felt really contrived.
Really, the only thing that remains as high quality as ever through all this is Katniss. She remains an interesting character right to the end, despite how crazy she's gotten by now. Every character centric scene about her (that doesn't take place in a broom closet or nightmare/hallucination in a hospital bed) rings completely true.
Endings are hard. I wish this had been better, but it did work. The darkness and violence this one was able to go to let it feel like it was a real war, I just wish our characters were allowed to have participated to a larger extent in what happened in it.
Showing posts with label Suzanne Collins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suzanne Collins. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
If a sequel is worse than the original, does that guarantee it gets a lower rating than the original?
Catching Fire, the sequel to the Hunger Games follows Katniss through the fallout of having not only won the Hunger Games, but thwarted their masters in the process. These Masters now look to extract their revenge through threats, violence and jackbooted thugs. Katniss is forced to watch people suffer for actions she believes are her own fault, and finds herself paralyzed with doubt.
It continues to be a story about Katniss more than anything else and she and all the other veterans from the first book continue to shock and amaze with their likability, comprehensive personalities and so on. The book's biggest problem lies with the new characters introduced in this book. President Snow is a completely one dimensional villain for the book to personify the cruelty of the Capitol. Where once we had people like Effie, who were casually cruel, but complete personalities, or people like Caesar who had clear moments of understanding of how the Games really hurt people, now President Snow is just a vicious toad with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. In addition, Gale, who we met only very briefly in one scene in the first book, only has one real scene in this book as well. There's supposedly a lot of conflict in Katniss' mind regarding the two boys in her life, and yet we still have yet to really meet one of them! Heck, Gale's mother is more of a character than he is. Finnick is really the only addition to the cast that feels on the level of characters introduced in the first book in terms of quality. His humor adds a lot of levity to this book that is probably the only concrete thing in this book definitively better than the original, and he doesn't sacrifice any depth or complexity to bring that levity.
In addition, this book is not nearly as clever as the first one. Katniss spends a lot of time unable to piece together really obvious clues when once she was able to deduce situations extremely quickly. She won the first Hunger Games because she was smart, but the most potent weapon she employs in the sequel is other people liking her. The Games that the character Haymitch won in the past... the one Katniss concluded he must have won by being smarter than everyone else, is revealed to have been about 50-50 dumb luck and random mass guessing on Haymitch's part. No one in Catching Fire is as smart as they were in the Hunger Games, which is really too bad.
But still... everything else about the first book continues to be great in this book. The strong characterizations, well paced plot, high stakes tension, and exciting action all still work in this book's favor. While it isn't nearly as good as the Hunger Games, I still think it earns a 'mere' five stars while the Hunger Games would be insulted by that few. The only thing that could knock it down a peg to as low as four stars would be the final set of reveals setting up the final book, Mockingjay, and I'm going to generously 'count' those toward the contents of that book instead because they didn't have too much to do with the story of Catching Fire, and are just transitions. I'll save my discussion of my problems with these transitions, and the setup of Mockingjay for when I finish that book.
Catching Fire, the sequel to the Hunger Games follows Katniss through the fallout of having not only won the Hunger Games, but thwarted their masters in the process. These Masters now look to extract their revenge through threats, violence and jackbooted thugs. Katniss is forced to watch people suffer for actions she believes are her own fault, and finds herself paralyzed with doubt.
It continues to be a story about Katniss more than anything else and she and all the other veterans from the first book continue to shock and amaze with their likability, comprehensive personalities and so on. The book's biggest problem lies with the new characters introduced in this book. President Snow is a completely one dimensional villain for the book to personify the cruelty of the Capitol. Where once we had people like Effie, who were casually cruel, but complete personalities, or people like Caesar who had clear moments of understanding of how the Games really hurt people, now President Snow is just a vicious toad with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. In addition, Gale, who we met only very briefly in one scene in the first book, only has one real scene in this book as well. There's supposedly a lot of conflict in Katniss' mind regarding the two boys in her life, and yet we still have yet to really meet one of them! Heck, Gale's mother is more of a character than he is. Finnick is really the only addition to the cast that feels on the level of characters introduced in the first book in terms of quality. His humor adds a lot of levity to this book that is probably the only concrete thing in this book definitively better than the original, and he doesn't sacrifice any depth or complexity to bring that levity.
In addition, this book is not nearly as clever as the first one. Katniss spends a lot of time unable to piece together really obvious clues when once she was able to deduce situations extremely quickly. She won the first Hunger Games because she was smart, but the most potent weapon she employs in the sequel is other people liking her. The Games that the character Haymitch won in the past... the one Katniss concluded he must have won by being smarter than everyone else, is revealed to have been about 50-50 dumb luck and random mass guessing on Haymitch's part. No one in Catching Fire is as smart as they were in the Hunger Games, which is really too bad.
But still... everything else about the first book continues to be great in this book. The strong characterizations, well paced plot, high stakes tension, and exciting action all still work in this book's favor. While it isn't nearly as good as the Hunger Games, I still think it earns a 'mere' five stars while the Hunger Games would be insulted by that few. The only thing that could knock it down a peg to as low as four stars would be the final set of reveals setting up the final book, Mockingjay, and I'm going to generously 'count' those toward the contents of that book instead because they didn't have too much to do with the story of Catching Fire, and are just transitions. I'll save my discussion of my problems with these transitions, and the setup of Mockingjay for when I finish that book.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Battle Royale is one of my favorite movies, and comparisons between it and this book are going to be inevitable because they share a number of themes and subject matter. In fact, I'd be surprised if Suzanne Collins has never seen that movie. However, while they share some themes and concepts, the focus of each is very different.
The Hunger Games follows the story of a girl named Katariss entered into a cruel tournament where children are forced to fight each other to the death for the entertainment of the higher class. Battle Royale is the story of a 9th grade class judged the "worst in the nation", put on an island and forced to fight to the death by their government.
The explanation of the purpose and mechanics of the contest in Battle Royale are somewhat brief and utilitarian, putting the characters into the mix as soon as possible, and the story took place almost entirely within the tournament itself. The plot was essentially about how each character reacts to the situation based on who they are, what they value, and what they would sacrifice for what they valued. I'll get into why this is so different from the Hunger Games in just a second.
Almost everything about this book is right. Every single character is fascinating, and the viewpoint character is no exception. I found myself speculating about their lives outside the scope of the book, and I felt like I was making informed guesses because they were so real. I was actually dead-on accurate in my speculations when it came to Haymitch. The main two characters are by far the most realized, even among the bunch and discovering more about them was the thing that pulled me through the story in less than a day.
Every instance of exposition, every reveal is done well. We learn things precisely when we need to know them. The initial conditions of the contest aren't revealed until the main character is living them, even though she would've known about them before. If the reader had known ahead of time about that, it wouldn't have held one quarter the intensity it did.
Every character was likable, even the ones which in any lesser author would have been written as unlikable because it's such an easy crutch to do so. I should specify more clearly what I mean by "character" here, because the overwhelming majority of the contestants actually in the arena actually never became characters at any point. Even the antagonist for most of the story wasn't really a character, just a Dragon. A dangerous object to be avoided or disarmed. Even Foxface, who had identifiable traits and interacted with the plot at a few points is someone I still can't decide was really a character or not. The characters who were characters though were simply amazing, and their sheer personhood made this story work in every possible way.
The reason why the Hunger Games is different than Battle Royale is that the Hunger Games was about Katariss, what elements shaped her as a character and put her on the path to the Games, what she was willing to do to increase her chances of winning the Games, and how she felt about the Games. Battle Royale was a census of how various people faced death, friendship in the face of inevitable death, and senseless, breathtaking unfairness. BR didn't need to explain in very good detail why they were in the situation, because it would've taken away from the 'senseless' aspect. The Hunger Games, however, explored the question of the purpose of the Games, their place in the world and it's history, and their role in shaping who Katariss is. The Games were characterized to such an extent that I don't feel it'd be inaccurate to say that the Games themselves are the book's real antagonist.
The Hunger Games was amazing. Eleventy squintillion stars out of a possible five.
And I was telling Emma I thought I might wear out her "1 Star" tag...
The Hunger Games follows the story of a girl named Katariss entered into a cruel tournament where children are forced to fight each other to the death for the entertainment of the higher class. Battle Royale is the story of a 9th grade class judged the "worst in the nation", put on an island and forced to fight to the death by their government.
The explanation of the purpose and mechanics of the contest in Battle Royale are somewhat brief and utilitarian, putting the characters into the mix as soon as possible, and the story took place almost entirely within the tournament itself. The plot was essentially about how each character reacts to the situation based on who they are, what they value, and what they would sacrifice for what they valued. I'll get into why this is so different from the Hunger Games in just a second.
Almost everything about this book is right. Every single character is fascinating, and the viewpoint character is no exception. I found myself speculating about their lives outside the scope of the book, and I felt like I was making informed guesses because they were so real. I was actually dead-on accurate in my speculations when it came to Haymitch. The main two characters are by far the most realized, even among the bunch and discovering more about them was the thing that pulled me through the story in less than a day.
Every instance of exposition, every reveal is done well. We learn things precisely when we need to know them. The initial conditions of the contest aren't revealed until the main character is living them, even though she would've known about them before. If the reader had known ahead of time about that, it wouldn't have held one quarter the intensity it did.
Every character was likable, even the ones which in any lesser author would have been written as unlikable because it's such an easy crutch to do so. I should specify more clearly what I mean by "character" here, because the overwhelming majority of the contestants actually in the arena actually never became characters at any point. Even the antagonist for most of the story wasn't really a character, just a Dragon. A dangerous object to be avoided or disarmed. Even Foxface, who had identifiable traits and interacted with the plot at a few points is someone I still can't decide was really a character or not. The characters who were characters though were simply amazing, and their sheer personhood made this story work in every possible way.
The reason why the Hunger Games is different than Battle Royale is that the Hunger Games was about Katariss, what elements shaped her as a character and put her on the path to the Games, what she was willing to do to increase her chances of winning the Games, and how she felt about the Games. Battle Royale was a census of how various people faced death, friendship in the face of inevitable death, and senseless, breathtaking unfairness. BR didn't need to explain in very good detail why they were in the situation, because it would've taken away from the 'senseless' aspect. The Hunger Games, however, explored the question of the purpose of the Games, their place in the world and it's history, and their role in shaping who Katariss is. The Games were characterized to such an extent that I don't feel it'd be inaccurate to say that the Games themselves are the book's real antagonist.
The Hunger Games was amazing. Eleventy squintillion stars out of a possible five.
And I was telling Emma I thought I might wear out her "1 Star" tag...
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
This is the third and final book in Suzanne Collin's Hunger Games series. The first was The Hunger Games, and the second was Catching Fire.
This book failed to blow my mind like The Hunger Games did. It was a solid conclusion to the trilogy, and took the reader to new, if largely expected, places. It wrapped up everything that needed wrapped up and was largely satisfying, but was not even close to as awesome as The Hunger Games was. Too bad.
Collins impressed me in this book with the horrible things she did to certain characters that seemed sacred and untouched before. Really bad stuff happens, people change, and characters really develop fully. Peeta especially has a really, really interesting development that sort of defines the book for me. And Buttercup. But I am a sucker for cats. I cried my brains out during one of Buttercup's scenes.
I felt like the Coin plotline was really contrived and/or confusing. You never really got a sense of what she was actually doing. Katniss didn't even seem to know what was going on with Coin ever, even at the end when Katniss acted rather decisively on some really questionable information about Coin. I felt like Collins really should have told us outright whether or not Coin had... done the things... but I was really unsure about that! It would have been nice to know whether the intrigue Katniss was acting on was real or imagined.
I would still recommend the series, but if you read the first book and don't feel like you need to know what happens next more power to you. The first book is orders of magnitude better than the rest of the series.
This book failed to blow my mind like The Hunger Games did. It was a solid conclusion to the trilogy, and took the reader to new, if largely expected, places. It wrapped up everything that needed wrapped up and was largely satisfying, but was not even close to as awesome as The Hunger Games was. Too bad.
Collins impressed me in this book with the horrible things she did to certain characters that seemed sacred and untouched before. Really bad stuff happens, people change, and characters really develop fully. Peeta especially has a really, really interesting development that sort of defines the book for me. And Buttercup. But I am a sucker for cats. I cried my brains out during one of Buttercup's scenes.
I felt like the Coin plotline was really contrived and/or confusing. You never really got a sense of what she was actually doing. Katniss didn't even seem to know what was going on with Coin ever, even at the end when Katniss acted rather decisively on some really questionable information about Coin. I felt like Collins really should have told us outright whether or not Coin had... done the things... but I was really unsure about that! It would have been nice to know whether the intrigue Katniss was acting on was real or imagined.
I would still recommend the series, but if you read the first book and don't feel like you need to know what happens next more power to you. The first book is orders of magnitude better than the rest of the series.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
This is the sequel to The Hunger Games, and compared to the first book it was very disappointing. It was still good, but Hunger Games was stellar and good when you are expecting stellar is disappointing.
Too much of Catching Fire was devoted to that old, comfortable teen romance routine, e.g., "oh no, two boys love me and I am sort of in love with both of them, and I don't know what I really want but I refuse to actually talk to anyone about what I am feeling." Really lame. A lot of Catching Fire is, unfortunately, devoted to Katniss bellyaching in her head about her relationships with Gale and Peeta. This was extremely repetitive and boring.
The writing in this book was the same as in Hunger Games: first person, present tense. This is awesome in the more action packed parts of the book, but just weird when Katniss is worrying about hurting people's feelings for endless pages or speculating about what may or may not happen eventually. First person present tense does not lend itself to introspection well, it turns out.
Don't get me wrong, there are good parts of this book. It really picks up about 60% of the way through and is as exciting and engaging as Hunger Games, if not as original. A few of the peripheral characters became more interesting, and there were a ton of unexpected twists and turns. You can't help empathizing with Katniss and her friends in this book. The setting is so cruel and heartless to them that I definitely choked up once or twice.
I am not sure that this book should exist. Hunger Games was amazing, and the third book (Mockingjay) promises to take the reader to very interesting places, but Catching Fire couldn't decide if it was setting up the third book or rehashing the first. Literally, when it wasn't setting up stuff that didn't even begin to happen in this book, remarkably similar things were happening to the first book. It's pretty much like if there was a sequel to "Titanic" where Rose took another cruise where the boat crashed into an iceberg. Oh, and half the movie would be devoted to her discussing her feelings. So maybe the plot of Catching Fire could have been abbreviated and stuck in "Mockingjay." Or not. We'll see.
I hesitate to recommend or disparage this book too much before I read "Mockingjay" since how much I like the third book will determine my feelings on the series as a whole. Stay tuned for that!
Too much of Catching Fire was devoted to that old, comfortable teen romance routine, e.g., "oh no, two boys love me and I am sort of in love with both of them, and I don't know what I really want but I refuse to actually talk to anyone about what I am feeling." Really lame. A lot of Catching Fire is, unfortunately, devoted to Katniss bellyaching in her head about her relationships with Gale and Peeta. This was extremely repetitive and boring.
The writing in this book was the same as in Hunger Games: first person, present tense. This is awesome in the more action packed parts of the book, but just weird when Katniss is worrying about hurting people's feelings for endless pages or speculating about what may or may not happen eventually. First person present tense does not lend itself to introspection well, it turns out.
Don't get me wrong, there are good parts of this book. It really picks up about 60% of the way through and is as exciting and engaging as Hunger Games, if not as original. A few of the peripheral characters became more interesting, and there were a ton of unexpected twists and turns. You can't help empathizing with Katniss and her friends in this book. The setting is so cruel and heartless to them that I definitely choked up once or twice.
I am not sure that this book should exist. Hunger Games was amazing, and the third book (Mockingjay) promises to take the reader to very interesting places, but Catching Fire couldn't decide if it was setting up the third book or rehashing the first. Literally, when it wasn't setting up stuff that didn't even begin to happen in this book, remarkably similar things were happening to the first book. It's pretty much like if there was a sequel to "Titanic" where Rose took another cruise where the boat crashed into an iceberg. Oh, and half the movie would be devoted to her discussing her feelings. So maybe the plot of Catching Fire could have been abbreviated and stuck in "Mockingjay." Or not. We'll see.
I hesitate to recommend or disparage this book too much before I read "Mockingjay" since how much I like the third book will determine my feelings on the series as a whole. Stay tuned for that!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I was so prepared to be disappointed by this book because of its recent hype and popularity but I was completely not disappointed! This is one of the best books I have read in a while. I got so caught up in the story I read it in about 48 hours. It actually deserves its popularity, unlike some books I could mention.
The Hunger Games is set in a dystopia that used to be North America. Their are several districts which are subjugated by the capital. People in the capital enjoy wealth while those in the districts starve and generally have pretty terrible lives. To flaunt its power over the districts, each year the capital takes a boy and a girl from each district and forces them all to fight to the death in a televised game. The story follows Katniss, one of the best heroines in any book I have ever read. She is the provider for her mother and sister, and actually grounded and mature, unlike most girls portrayed in fiction. The Hunger Games is not about her feelings usually, but when Katniss talks about her feelings and all that she actually sounds like a real person! The book isn't a series of her poor decisions. She is a badass. I don't want to give away any more of the plot, because it is super awesome and everyone should read this book.
The Hunger Games is written in first person, present tense, e.g.: "I roll an unfamiliar berry in my fingers." It was distracting for about three pages, then I stopped noticing and it seemed natural with the fast paced, immediate nature of the story. I am not sure I have ever read a book written in such a way, but it somehow worked really well.
I was a little worried that, despite being a young adult book, The Hunger Games would be disturbing and violent given the setting. It really wasn't! Remarkably, even though the book was about teenagers having to kill each other it was very tasteful and not disturbing. I appreciated the complete absence of any sexual violence.
There are so many aspects of this book that blew me away. I feel like I can't go into all the things I loved about this book without giving a lot away, but just know it totally rocked my world. I can't wait to get a hold of its sequels. I am so glad I waited to read this book until the entire trilogy was published... I would hate to have to wait to finish the series. I am definitely going to pick up the second and third books ASAP. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who likes adventure stories, dystopian settings, female heroes, young adult books... It's really an amazing book!
The Hunger Games is set in a dystopia that used to be North America. Their are several districts which are subjugated by the capital. People in the capital enjoy wealth while those in the districts starve and generally have pretty terrible lives. To flaunt its power over the districts, each year the capital takes a boy and a girl from each district and forces them all to fight to the death in a televised game. The story follows Katniss, one of the best heroines in any book I have ever read. She is the provider for her mother and sister, and actually grounded and mature, unlike most girls portrayed in fiction. The Hunger Games is not about her feelings usually, but when Katniss talks about her feelings and all that she actually sounds like a real person! The book isn't a series of her poor decisions. She is a badass. I don't want to give away any more of the plot, because it is super awesome and everyone should read this book.
The Hunger Games is written in first person, present tense, e.g.: "I roll an unfamiliar berry in my fingers." It was distracting for about three pages, then I stopped noticing and it seemed natural with the fast paced, immediate nature of the story. I am not sure I have ever read a book written in such a way, but it somehow worked really well.
I was a little worried that, despite being a young adult book, The Hunger Games would be disturbing and violent given the setting. It really wasn't! Remarkably, even though the book was about teenagers having to kill each other it was very tasteful and not disturbing. I appreciated the complete absence of any sexual violence.
There are so many aspects of this book that blew me away. I feel like I can't go into all the things I loved about this book without giving a lot away, but just know it totally rocked my world. I can't wait to get a hold of its sequels. I am so glad I waited to read this book until the entire trilogy was published... I would hate to have to wait to finish the series. I am definitely going to pick up the second and third books ASAP. I cannot recommend this book highly enough to anyone who likes adventure stories, dystopian settings, female heroes, young adult books... It's really an amazing book!
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