I read a lot. I mean, A LOT. As in, I’m pretty much exhausted every day because I’ll stay up until 1am (or 5am) reading when I should be sleeping because I don’t have any time during the day to satisfy my craving for the written word.
I also read VERY quickly, a gene I picked up from my Dad.
Therefore, I’m constantly on the lookout for new books of all types to read. I mostly read sci-fi and fantasy but I’ll crack open pretty much anything. I don’t mind YA novels, they CAN be pretty good. Usually there’s not enough sex, but whatever, I can deal with that if there’s enough violence or something else to get me interested. A friend recently recommended that I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I consulted with other friends via facebook and discovered that many people whose opinion I respect were equally as enthusiastic about the sci-fi series. Kick. Ass. Amazon, here I come.
The trilogy arrived and I devoured them in 3 days. Yes, 3 days.
Here’s why (without giving too much away):
I love fictional (not real, mind you) gratuitous violence.
I don’t know why but it makes me soooo happy. Maybe it’s a generational thing and I grew up with too many violent movies and video games but the more blood and gore, the better. I had a thing for horror movies as a kid and would gleefully watch as some dumb teenager got hacked apart. Haha…I swear I’m not disturbed! Anyhooters, The Hunger Games trilogy is full of violence. Kids killing other kids for sport, traps designed to incite more violence, a civil war in which giant mutant human-lizard hybrids are dispatched to tear people limb from limb. And the author isn’t afraid to kill off main characters. It’s pretty awesome.
I love strong women.
The protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, would certainly be the most obvious example of this. She risks her life daily by hunting illegally, doesn’t take shit from anyone, and runs into battle when she’s told to go and hide. She rocks with a bow and arrow. She also freaks out and shuts down on occasion, but wouldn’t you if you were 16 and forced to kill other kids? She’s not the only example either; the series is full of bad ass ladies.
I love love triangles.
They’re so juicy! I’ve never watched a soap opera in my life but I can certainly appreciate a good love triangle. I strive to live a drama-free life (cause I don’t need any of that bullshit) so it’s always fun to live vicariously via manufactured drama. I’ve sort of been in the middle of love triangles myself and they sucked major monkey balls but when it’s all fake, it’s all good. It’s agonizingly awesome when you want both guys to get the girl. And I REALLY wanted both of these guys to get the girl.
I love when advanced technology meets post war/apocalyptic/rudimentary conditions.
Like in Terminator, District 9 or Cowboys & Aliens, there’s just something kind of awesome about conflicting genres joining together to create a whole new brand of bad ass. In The Hunger Games, the Capitol utilizes cloaking hover crafts and high-tech showers (Uhmm, hello? Can we please invent these already??) while forcing the Districts to live in poverty and squalor.
I love when books make me cry.
Not to sound like a pussy or anything, but I cried twice in the first 50 pages. Yeah, I’m pretty embarrassed to admit that, but what the fuck, I admit all kinds of shit on this blog, right? I kind of dig it when books make me cry, it means that they are that good and they touched a nerve. There were parts of this series that devastated me. For real. I see a lot of myself in Katniss….uh…except for the whole killing people part…
At any rate, I haven’t really done any book reviews, but even though I’ve read two books since finishing this series about a week ago, I’m still pretty obsessed with it so I figured I’d get it out of my system. At least until the movie comes out in March, which I’m uber excited about. My boss’s kid is friends with a girl who plays one of the Tributes and I’m being told good things about the film.
“Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!”
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