i did not like the hunger games.
spoilers.
i was expecting to read about a heroine plunged against her will into a deadly game of combat and survival. but what i got instead is some kind of bizaare prom queen story. plain jane is selected! she is given a nice dress and is the center of everyone's attention! which hunk will she choose? will she become prom queen despite the odds?
i did not like how katniss went from kitten-drowning outlaw to rose-kissing, dress-twirling, camera-conscious media darling literally overnight.
can we please stop with the titles? "the boy who lived." "the girl who was on fire." howsabout "the reader who rolled his eyes"?
i did not like how the other tributes had no personality at all. the strongest, funniest, most interesting character in the book was actually peeta. but with a name like that who cares.
i did not like how the actual games' narrative was driven neither by the human interaction/tension amongst the tributes nor katniss' resourcefulness and ingenuity but rather these lazy, artificial plot devices like cornucopias, game master brush fires, and silver parachutes.
those effing silver parachutes. deux-ex-machina in a bottle.
el cheapo sci-fi bits like "artificial fire" and "muttations" that aren't explained properly and ultimately go nowhere.
the hunger games are glorified, despite the author's efforts. we are supposed to be appalled by what goes on, but we end up buying into the concept and cheering for katniss to win anyway. the book gives in to the games. how can we be horrified by all these kids being forced to kill each other, when except for two or three, the author makes no effort to portray them as human beings?
and i do not accept the "it's YA fiction" excuse. king arthur is considered a children's story these days, and it deals with murder and infidelity pretty head-on and in much more depth than this fluff. if it's a good story, it's a good story. "young adult" is just a shelf in the bookstore.
It was better when it was called Battle Royale.
ReplyDeleteBOOM. XD
ReplyDeletei specifically did not mention battle royale because it'd be borderline unfair, like comparing black sabbath and blink 182.
pahiram ng libro :D oo, matigas ulo ko pero babasahin ko muna bago ko panoorin :P
ReplyDelete- lucy
wala akong libro, lucy. pinakinggan ko lang yung audiobook. gusto mo ng download link? pwede mo pakinggan sa opis habang ginagalaw-galaw ang kamay sa keyboard.
ReplyDeletegame! :D
ReplyDeletesalamat, kmcoy!
- lucy
totally agree. there were a million things wrong with the book. least of which, katniss never really had to do anything that she didn't want to! she was horrified at the possibility of having to kill rue. surprise, surprise: someone else does! now she doesn't have to struggle with that. she doesn't want to have to kill peeta. surprise, surprise: now TWO people can win the games! problem solved. of course, she ultimately comes up with another way of keeping from having to kill peeta, but it's these "plot twists" that kept me at a distance emotionally from the characters. as challenged physically as they were, and as awful as it would be to have to kill anyone against your will, there would have been much more substance to the story if the other tributes were developed more fully and katniss actually had to make a decision about murdering someone she didn't hate. i thought that's what the book would be about.
ReplyDeletegood points, carrie. katniss never had to get her hands dirty. the author avoids the tricky moral dilemmas using cheap writers' gimmicks.
ReplyDelete