Hunger Games

Over the last 9 months or so I have ebbed and flowed with obsessions over certain books or series of books, much like those who became devout followers of Harry Potter. It has been difficult to pinpoint exactly why, but my recent obsession has become the Hunger Games series (2 of 3 books released to date: Hunger Games and Catching Fire). What is it about this series that has me so hooked? It’s been a few weeks since I read them and I’m still chained to the story and un-patiently waiting for the last of the trilogy, The Victors, to be released in August.

The story seems to wage a battle against itself at all times:
· brutality and compassion
· love and hate
· truth and lies
· poverty and excess
· enemies and friendships
· selfishness and generosity
· sacrifice and self-preservation
· reality and fantasy

The story compels the reader to constantly evaluate your sensitivity to the chapter at hand. I was constantly asking myself: 1) How do I feel about the choices that are being made, 2) Who do I believe is telling the truth, and 3) Can I make sense of what is happening and can I accept the violence as a means to an end? These aren’t easy questions and what makes it more complicated is that these books are directed towards the young adult audience who may not have secured a sense of right and wrong for themselves.

These books explore heroes. Is a hero defined by choices they make under your morals or theirs? Is a hero born or bred? Can every conflict be resolved peacefully and if not, how far can a person go before they are no longer a part of the resolution? Is ‘kill or be killed’ enough reason to kill? If lying protects someone, is it ok? How do you define a “win” in the context of war? Lastly, can love survive however war will change a hero?

Catching Fire left readers on such a cliff hanger that I’ve probably contemplated a dozen possible scenarios as to where the story will take us next. And since the Author, Suzanne Collins, is most likely enjoying the thought of her readers squirming in their seats for several months, I’m certain she’ll toss in the kind of curve balls that she so expertly executes that she will have me throwing the book against the wall and then running to it in regret carefully checking that all pages are still intact.

I’ve said this before, and will say it again here. This book is not for everyone. Despite the attractive love story, if you can’t get past the affects of Hunger Games and the consequences of it, you wouldn’t be able to appreciate its’ complexities. It’s a mind game that exercises your mores’ and your spiritual beliefs.

About The Hunger Games (from Scholastic)
In this gripping young adult novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present, the nation of Panem consists of a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying Districts, in the ruins of the area once known as North America. Sixteen-year-old Katniss and her friend Gale forage for food in the woods surrounding their impoverished District, in this stratified society where the Capitol controls all resources.

The main support for both their families, Katniss and Gale are apprehensive of the approaching annual Reaping, when two “tributes” between the ages of twelve and eighteen will be chosen by lottery from each of the twelve districts to compete in The Hunger Games, a survival contest on live TV in which teenagers fight to the death and there can be only one victor.

When her beloved younger sister Prim is chosen as one of the tributes, Katniss volunteers to go in her sister’s place. Her fellow tribute from District 12 is Peeta, a boy with whom she soon develops a complicated relationship. After traveling to the Capitol and undergoing elaborate training and preparation, Katniss and Peeta are launched into the game. In the terrifying events that follow, Katniss must marshal all her skills to stay alive and all her emotions to remain a caring human being in the face of the stark brutality of the Games.

“It’s hard to choose one element that inspired The Hunger Games,” says Suzanne Collins. “Probably the first seeds were planted when, as an eight-year-old with a mythology obsession, I read the story of Theseus. The myth told how in punishment for past deeds, Athens periodically had to send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete where they were thrown in the Labyrinth and devoured by the monstrous Minotaur. Even as a third grader, I could appreciate the ruthlessness of this message. ‘Mess with us and we’ll do something worse than kill you. We’ll kill your children.’ “Other early influences would have to include watching too many gladiator movies which dramatized the Romans’ flair for turning executions into popular entertainment, my military specialist dad who took us to battlefields for family vacations, and touring with a sword-fighting company in high school. But it wasn’t until the much more recent experience of channel surfing between reality TV programming and actual war coverage that the story for this series came to me.”