About a month ago I ordered the complete trilogy of The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Usually, when I hear a bunch of reviews from my friends about a movie or a book, it’s going to be pretty good. I trust them. They are smart, cool, honest people. I mean, it wasn’t just my friends, this trilogy seemed to be causing quite a stir in the literature world. The New Yorker claiming, “The books tend to end in cliff-hangers that provoke their readers to post half-mocking protestations of agony on Internet discussion boards.” Seattle PI, “Once I started reading it, I could not put it down.” Times, “Collins writes with raw power.” Pretty amazing reviews on-top of being on the New York Times best-seller list. So I start reading…
I stop reading. Is it just me? Or is this possibly the worst book I have ever read? I start asking around. Everyone seems surprised, shocked, and even offended that I have literally nothing good to say about this book. Now, you are probably thinking, well how can you judge when you didn’t even read them. I DID read them. All 3 books. ALL TERRIBLE. I felt so guilty about spending $40 on this nice set of books to just throw them in the garbage after 1 chapter. I kept reading. I was begging the story to get better after half-way through book 1. It just went on and on. Bad writing, weak story, embarrassing line after embarrassing line.
Ok, so some clarity. This book is about a young girl living in a sort of Communist society after the world has “ended” (everything is very vaguely described, and not vague in an intriguing sort of way). The main idea of the story is very reminiscent of a fantastic novel called Battle Royale. A bunch of kids forced by the government to fight each other in an arena for the entertainment and control of the government. There is somewhat a “love story” sprinkled throughout awkwardly and the amount of dialogue in the entire trilogy could probably fill a small teacup. Every time Collins is about to go into dialogue from some characters, she instead launches into an inner monologue by the main character Katniss, describing how the conversation went. The writing is extremely un-clever and boring. It’s really unclear as to who these books are written for since there is quite a bit of badly described gore and violence, but NO SEX. Only kissing. Really boring kissing. Like, really, really dull, dry kissing.
Also, book 1 and book 2 are EXACTLY THE SAME. Literally, Collins had so little imagination that she wrote the same book TWICE. They have the exact same story line. There is no build up, only let downs. So this is just a warning to you out there who feel the need to read this book because everyone’s doing it. No need. Just watch the movie they are making with Lenny Kravitz and Woody Harrelson coming out in a month. It looks so good. NOT. But here’s the trailer if you’re interested: www.thehungergamesmovie.com
