Tag: suzanne collins

Books Read in 2014 – 23. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (Contains Spoilers.)

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Genre: Dystopia, Young Adult

Narrative Style: First person narrative, chronologicaldownload (6)

Rating: 2.5/5

Format: Kindle

Published: 2010

Synopsis: Having been pulled from the arena at the end of Catching Fire, Katniss finds herself in the hands of the rebels. She is reluctant to accept the role of Mockingjay but does so when she realises what the Capitol has done to Peeta. The battle for supremacy between the rebels and the Capitol begins in earnest.

This is definitely the weakest book of the trilogy. I was keen to read on at the end of Catching Fire. It wasn’t obvious what would happen to Katniss and I dived in straightaway. It wasn’t long before I felt disappointed though.

There were a number of reasons for this. First of all, Katniss is whinier than ever, determined to take the blame for everything and reluctant to accept her new role. I found her even more irritating than usual. She is naive in her views and the reader is probably supposed to find this innocently refreshing but to me it just seems unrealistic. Gale is much more pragmatic but no less annoying as he seems more a rebel mouthpiece than a real character. The transformation of Peeta to a tool of the Capitol didn’t convince either. He moved between good Peeta and evil Peeta at the mercy of the plot with little thought for his actual character. I didn’t believe in either role. Especially as it started to be apparent that he and Katniss would end up together. There was no tension as to whether his good side would return.

A bigger problem is that of the action, a lot of which happens away from Katniss. The reader is then given a couple of paragraphs about what has happened. (This will be solved in the film, I guess where they will be more able to use multiple viewpoints.) This is particularly troublesome after Katniss shoots Coin and there is a trial happening while Katniss is singing to herself in her cell. But it’s okay because she is found innocent and allowed to go home. Very unsatisfactory.

The ending was equally unsatisfactory. (In fact, about halfway through I realised that there was no way this could end in a way that would please me. I’m glad that Katniss didn’t end up with Gale but the idea that she was able to have a family with Peeta was just as problematic to me.) The epilogue was mawkish and sickening. I felt the same at the end of the last Harry Potter. I’m not sure why it is felt to be necessary. It wasn’t a fairy tale so why end with a happily ever after?

To end on a more positive note, there are some interesting ideas in this novel – the use of propaganda, the nature of warfare, the way power corrupts, for example – I just wish that they had been played out in a different way.

 

Books Read in 2014 – 22. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

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Genre: Dystopia, Young Adult

Narrative Style: First Person narrative, largely chronologicalcatchingfire02-718973

Rating 3/5

Format: Kindle

Published: 2009

Synopsis: Following their win at the Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta are preparing themselves for their victory tour and the next games. As this is a celebration of 75 years of the games, it calls for a special games to be designed, one which Katniss and Peeta will never forget.

I read The Hunger Games last year and I have to admit, I didn’t feel particularly compelled to read on. However, I always meant to read the others and so I finally got round to downloading Catching Fire and Mockingjay onto my kindle.

If anything, I enjoyed this more than The Hunger Games. The plot twists were a little less blatant and I loved the idea of the clock shaped games arena. The Capitol and the gamemakers seemed more cruel and some of the weapons / tricks played within the arena were truly horrible.

The book trotted along and I did find it hard to put down. I wanted to know that Katniss and Peeta would survive. Or rather how they would survive – the existence of a third book suggesting that they both lived through this one. I was glad to have the third one ready and waiting as the end of this one was much more of a cliff hanger than the last one.

I still found Katniss intensely annoying. She is constantly selfish, ignorant and mistrustful. The way she swings between Gale and Peeta is also irritating. While she is a strong lead character who takes action, she is often in the wrong or acts in a foolish way. She was hard to like. Whilst, on the one hand, Peeta is more sympathetic, in some ways he is just as annoying. His essential goodness doesn’t quite ring true.

The final reveal at the end of the book and Katniss’ reaction too it seemed a little forced and sudden. More subtle clues throughout might have helped with this. The appearance of Gale at the end and his rebel status also did not quite convince.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh but I did feel that I constantly wanted to shake Katniss. Maybe, again, it is just that I am too far removed from Katniss’ age to really be able to relate to her. Certainly, the idea of these books is strong and interesting, I was left feeling that the execution could have been better.

 

Top Ten Tuesday – Top Ten Worlds We’d Never Want to Live In

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Top ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week we are talking about fictional worlds we would not want to live in.

In no particular order:

1. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood. This is one of the first dystopia that I read and still ranks as one of the scariest. The humiliations that the handmaid’s go through are almost beyond imagining. Atwood’s nightmare world is frighteningly convincing.

2. 1984 – George Orwell. I read this at school. I am sure that it is at least partly responsible for my own political convictions. It is a shame that things like room 101 and big brother have been stripped of most of their meaning by imbecilic television programmes.

3. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley. I often feel like the savage in this book when I look at modern culture. I feel a little lost and confused when I see the things that people do, watch, listen to, post on social media.

4. Mad Addam series – Margaret Atwood. I haven’t read the third book of this series yet but the first two were really disturbing. As with The Handmaid’s Tale, you could really see the roots of reality in this book. Take it as a warning, folks. This is where we could be headed.

5.  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick / Bladerunner. It is particularly unsettling not to be able to tell if someone is human or not. Even more frightening is the idea that you might not even know yourself. This one eats at the very heart of the reader.

6. War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells. Oh, I know, the Martians get it in the end but up until that point, there really is no stopping them. I can’t help feeling this is what  it would be like if any aliens found us. Why travel across space and time, if you’ve not already conquered everything nearer at hand?

7. The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins. I’ve not read the rest of this series either. I liked the idea of the games and the different sectors more than I liked the way the story played out. You know everyone would watch it, that’s what makes it seem real.

8. Animal Farm – George Orwell. Another early influence on me politically. I imagine I’d be like poor old Boxer. Well-meaning but ultimately useless. I’d soon be carted off to the equivalent of the glue factory.

9. The Road – Cormac McCarthy. This is probably the bleakest book I have ever read. Some unnamed catastrophe has caused society to break down. McCarthy really captures the way that it would go once those rules were gone.

10. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro. This is another book where I liked the idea better than the execution. Children being bred purely for their organs is a chilling – and not unlikely – idea that gets to the heart of the issues surrounding cloning.

Eclectic Reading Challenge – New Adult – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

On By kepagewriterIn Eclectic Reader Challenge5 Comments

I’d not heard of the New Adult genre before I signed up to do the Eclectic Reader Challenge – although I suspect that it means books for teenagers that adults would like to read – but I looked it up on Goodreads and The Hunger Games was one of the first books I noticed and I’d been meaning to read it for a while.

I really enjoyed this book. It had everything really – action, strong characters, a serious point to make and it was exciting enough to keep you turning the pages. In fact, I could not put it down. IMG_0030

The character of Katniss and her relationship with fellow tribute, Peeta was compelling and I think teenagers particularly would be drawn into their potential romance. I do think this is clearly aimed at a teenage audience but that didn’t stop it from being an excellent read.

The idea of the hunger games is completely apt and believable. I could imagine Channel Four commissioning it. And people would watch it and vote for different ways for the contestants to die without a seconds thought. Well, hopefully not but it certainly wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. And to me, that is the definition of what good science fiction should do – take some aspect of the current reality and magnify it, show what would happen if we took it to its logical extreme.

If I had to make a complaint about this book, I would say that I thought some of the plotting was a little heavy handed – for example the changes to the games rules annoyed me a little. But this in no way spoiled my enjoyment of this book. And while I haven’t rushed to the shop to buy the next one, I know I will read it. Perhaps when I’ve got through a few more of my to read list.