*Dum de dum. I'm here to edit this for spoilers and whatnot since I wasn't very good with that before. Also maybe I should take out some of the random screams of frustration and stuff. Hmmm.**Tears out hair* Aghhhh. AGGGHHH!!! Just … What is it with these books? Really? I don't even know where to begin. They frustrate the heck out of me, especially this one. Just the sight of these books makes me want to strangle someone. And it's not that they're horrible, because they're not horrible. They're decent, and I can see the potential behind the concept, but I honestly think a lot of people are more in love with the idea of the book than the book itself. In my opinion, the plot is rather random and strangely paced. I didn't find the characters compelling, and they barely evoked any emotion in me at all. I understand why these books might appeal to the average everyday person, but to be honest, I don't fully understand why they're so critically acclaimed and are repeatedly called "groundbreaking." Suzanne Collins didn't invent the dystopian novel, people. And Hunger Games, in my opinion, didn't really capture the message it was supposed to. There are just so many dystopian novels that have the same type of themes but capture the horrors and emotions during violence/warfare more powerfully. (Read Battle Royale or The Knife of Never Letting Go, for example.)I think the first problem lies in Suzanne Collins' writing style, although maybe it's just not my cup of tea. No, it's not terrible, and I think it improved with each book. Towards the middle of Mockingjay I noticed that she stopped using a fragment. Every other sentence. HOORAY. *claps* But, still. Even though some of her descriptions are great, she seems to have nearly no emotional connection with her writing or her characters. Maybe Katniss is the problem (which I'll get to later). But seriously, horrible things happened in this book: explosions, decapitations, etc. and I felt next to nothing.Furthermore, I don't think she deals with character deaths well. For example, a certain important character was killed off in a single sentence. Something along the lines of, "And then his head got bitten off. Moving on …" I was like, Wait. What the hell just happened? I think there were three times a character died and I didn't even understand that it had happened until ten pages later.I understand maybe Collins was trying to capture the suddenness and inhumanity of these deaths, or the feelings of numbness that follow them, but instead it came off as confusing and cold-hearted to me. No, authors shouldn't be too emotional in their writing, but when you're writing through a character's eyes, it hardly makes sense for them to have no emotional reaction whatsoever. Katniss would be like, "Oh … so and so died. It's my fault. Oh well." And then she'd move on with her life like nothing had happened. Throughout the series I felt like it should have been written in third person, since Collins doesn't really go into Katniss's head all that much. Expanding on that point ... Katniss. I found her kind of useless as a main character. Pretty much everyone loves her, but she hardly even takes her own actions. Sure, she rebels sometimes, but most of the time people are just making her look pretty and telling her how to act and talk. People put words in her mouth, she says them, and everyone worships her. Then she's all like, "Everything is my fault and I'm such a horrible person! BOOHOO! I'm going to go shoot some random people now …" I just don't understand her actions.Why did she kill President Coin? And why did she vote for another Hunger Games? Am I stupid? I don't get it. The whole book she's ranting like "The Games ruined everything, and the Games never end and I will never escape from them, etc." and then at the end she's like, "Yeah sure, another Hunger Games. Great idea." And she said she was doing it for Prim? Uh … What's the logic in that? No matter how many times people have tried to explain it to me, I still don't fully understand.Then the ending … it was very anti-climatic. The long time lapse at the end was kind of jarring and confusing. And then, the way the whole love triangle was solved felt a bit too easy. Where's Gale? Oh he got some important job somewhere? Ahh, forget about him. I suddenly don't like him anymore. I'm off to make babies with Peeta, who has been going nuts and trying to kill me throughout this whole book. Because that makes sense? Then FIFTEEN YEARS LATER we have cute little children and there are no more Hunger Games! THEE ENNNNDD!Although honestly, I didn't care much about the love triangle at all because, in my opinion, Gale and Peeta were essentially the same character personality-wise; the only difference was their roles in her life. Also, I kept feeling like Katniss didn't really care enough about either of them, seeing as she kept being rather insensitive toward both of them and leading them both on. If Collins had wanted to be truly original and prove that Katniss was actually the strong, independent woman everyone seems to think she is, I honestly think she should have ended up alone. In the end, I feel like all the build-up was for pretty much nothing. I was hoping for some big, explosive ending, so I was disappointed when all I was left of was a feeling like, "That's .... it?"
Flying Kick-a-pow!
Hi people! I'm Brigid, a college student and lover of all things book-related--writing them, reading them, reviewing them, biting them ... Yeah. I mostly read YA but I'm open to pretty much everything.
*Dum de dum. I'm here to edit this for spoilers and whatnot since I wasn't very good with that before. Also maybe I should take out some of the random screams of frustration and stuff. Hmmm.**Tears out hair* Aghhhh. AGGGHHH!!! Just … What is it with these books? Really? I don't even know where to begin. They frustrate the heck out of me, especially this one. Just the sight of these books makes me want to strangle someone. And it's not that they're horrible, because they're not horrible. They're decent, and I can see the potential behind the concept, but I honestly think a lot of people are more in love with the idea of the book than the book itself. In my opinion, the plot is rather random and strangely paced. I didn't find the characters compelling, and they barely evoked any emotion in me at all. I understand why these books might appeal to the average everyday person, but to be honest, I don't fully understand why they're so critically acclaimed and are repeatedly called "groundbreaking." Suzanne Collins didn't invent the dystopian novel, people. And Hunger Games, in my opinion, didn't really capture the message it was supposed to. There are just so many dystopian novels that have the same type of themes but capture the horrors and emotions during violence/warfare more powerfully. (Read Battle Royale or The Knife of Never Letting Go, for example.)I think the first problem lies in Suzanne Collins' writing style, although maybe it's just not my cup of tea. No, it's not terrible, and I think it improved with each book. Towards the middle of Mockingjay I noticed that she stopped using a fragment. Every other sentence. HOORAY. *claps* But, still. Even though some of her descriptions are great, she seems to have nearly no emotional connection with her writing or her characters. Maybe Katniss is the problem (which I'll get to later). But seriously, horrible things happened in this book: explosions, decapitations, etc. and I felt next to nothing.Furthermore, I don't think she deals with character deaths well. For example, a certain important character was killed off in a single sentence. Something along the lines of, "And then his head got bitten off. Moving on …" I was like, Wait. What the hell just happened? I think there were three times a character died and I didn't even understand that it had happened until ten pages later.I understand maybe Collins was trying to capture the suddenness and inhumanity of these deaths, or the feelings of numbness that follow them, but instead it came off as confusing and cold-hearted to me. No, authors shouldn't be too emotional in their writing, but when you're writing through a character's eyes, it hardly makes sense for them to have no emotional reaction whatsoever. Katniss would be like, "Oh … so and so died. It's my fault. Oh well." And then she'd move on with her life like nothing had happened. Throughout the series I felt like it should have been written in third person, since Collins doesn't really go into Katniss's head all that much. Expanding on that point ... Katniss. I found her kind of useless as a main character. Pretty much everyone loves her, but she hardly even takes her own actions. Sure, she rebels sometimes, but most of the time people are just making her look pretty and telling her how to act and talk. People put words in her mouth, she says them, and everyone worships her. Then she's all like, "Everything is my fault and I'm such a horrible person! BOOHOO! I'm going to go shoot some random people now …" I just don't understand her actions.Why did she kill President Coin? And why did she vote for another Hunger Games? Am I stupid? I don't get it. The whole book she's ranting like "The Games ruined everything, and the Games never end and I will never escape from them, etc." and then at the end she's like, "Yeah sure, another Hunger Games. Great idea." And she said she was doing it for Prim? Uh … What's the logic in that? No matter how many times people have tried to explain it to me, I still don't fully understand.Then the ending … it was very anti-climatic. The long time lapse at the end was kind of jarring and confusing. And then, the way the whole love triangle was solved felt a bit too easy. Where's Gale? Oh he got some important job somewhere? Ahh, forget about him. I suddenly don't like him anymore. I'm off to make babies with Peeta, who has been going nuts and trying to kill me throughout this whole book. Because that makes sense? Then FIFTEEN YEARS LATER we have cute little children and there are no more Hunger Games! THEE ENNNNDD!Although honestly, I didn't care much about the love triangle at all because, in my opinion, Gale and Peeta were essentially the same character personality-wise; the only difference was their roles in her life. Also, I kept feeling like Katniss didn't really care enough about either of them, seeing as she kept being rather insensitive toward both of them and leading them both on. If Collins had wanted to be truly original and prove that Katniss was actually the strong, independent woman everyone seems to think she is, I honestly think she should have ended up alone. In the end, I feel like all the build-up was for pretty much nothing. I was hoping for some big, explosive ending, so I was disappointed when all I was left of was a feeling like, "That's .... it?"
Currently reading
Iliad
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
A Clash of Kings
Les Misérables
The Once and Future King
Fire and Ash
