If the goal of a writer is to torture her characters, Suzanne Collins should be arrested for violation of the Geneva Conventions.
For those who are not familiar with the books and are wondering what the fuss is about, The Hunger Games takes place in a post-apocalyptic future of America led by a tyrannical government. Once a year, two young people are taken form each District and forced to compete in the Hunger Games, a brutal, gladiator-like competition where the goal is to kill the other competitors while surviving in a booby-trapped wilderness. Collins’s hero, sixteen year old, Katniss Everdeen, almost accidentally ends up defying the government with the method of her win, and through the course of the next two books is sucked into plots and conspiracies to overthrow the government. In this spectacular conclusion to the Hunger Games trilogy, Katniss leads a media warfare campaign against the government, leading up to the final attack on the Capitol. The end is everything a reader could hope for, and fans of the series are guaranteed to weep.
Why are these books so popular? They are much more harsh and realistic than anything else in fantasy, especially the often idealized fantasy geared toward young people. The Hunger Games has no clear evil, no passionately moral hero, and the better part of human nature is often eclipsed by the worst. It is the harsh reality of people struggling to survive forces bigger than themselves. It seems that teens these days are either tougher or more sadistic readers than previously given credit for. Writers who consider this age group may want to keep that in mind and respect their audience as adults in the future.
One should also mention that Suzanne Collins is a brilliant writer. When readers float around in Katniss’s head, they feel her agony. The action sequences are perfect, the side characters are individualized, and despite some futuristic technology and certain characters’s bizarre grooming habits, the story is more believable than any I have read in a long time. Every aspect of the books are immensely well done.
Collins’s earlier series, The Underland Chronicles, has similar themes while still being entirely unique. It is aimed for a slightly younger audience, but is no less brilliant.
A movie version of The Hunger Games is scheduled to be released in 2011. It is expected to be rated PG-13, though it is difficult to imagine how to accomplish that without editing the content heavily. As Collins herself is writing the screenplay, die-hard fans should not automatically decide to boycott it, and should keep in mind the difficulties of transferring a first-person narrative to the screen.
This book is available at the Red Balloon Bookshop and any Barnes and Noble or Borders store. It is in the library system, but unless you have already requested it, you will have a long wait – there are over 150 requests already! As per 15 copies, expect to wait about ten weeks.
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