The Hunger Games

You know how it is when everyone and their brother tells you to read/watch/eat/try/visit something and the more you hear about it the less you want to read/watch/eat/try/visit or even aknowledge the existence of whatever?

Maybe that’s just me being all contrarian, but anyway.

I kept hearing about this book and thinking “I don’t really like Young adult… maybe I’ll get around to reading it…” then I heard there was going to be a movie and I thought, “Stupid Hollywood having to remake something yet again as a sign of their shrinking originality…”

Okay, so I am more than a contrarian, I’m a snob and an iconoclast.

But I can also admit when I was wrong.

I was wrong.

I was wrong to wait to read this book because… because despite it belonging to the genre of “Young adult” it was a terrifically written book that dealt with adult themes in a compelling manner.

Set in a world not too unlike our own but far far in the future where the rules of society have changed dramatically, author Suzanne Collins creates for us a story that is intriguing, dynamic, and hard to put down.

A lottery type event leads to our main character having to battle it out Survivor style against other combatants in a last man (child) standing sort of competition that wis uses by the powers that be as entertainment… a sort of reality TV concept from hell where no one has a choice and the ratings mean life or death.

What could have been overly heavy handed with social commentary or boringly simplistic in a whittiling down of opponents is instead a riveting portrayal of character development. Collins does a marvelous job of creating her new world with enough detail to keep the eader engaged without going overboard with exposition.

The main character Katniss is one of those rare protagonists that carry the story without showing signs of the load. The twists and turns are almost all unexpected and even the slightly annoying teen angst is well played.  

(I abhor teen angst but thankfully this book managed to not over do it… the narration and excitement of the more broad storylines more than made up for it.)

All in all, well worth a read, and for those of you who have limited time, a quick read at that.