Final Hunger Games Discussion
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| It took ages for my library to deliver Catching Fire and I was finally able to pick it up today. Being so far behind, I will not participate in the discussion at this time and will chime in when I'm done with both Fire and Jay. |
| We've been pretty silent here! I finished all 3 quite a bit ago...so specific details are fading. But, one thing that sticks out for me is the writing style. Taken on it's own, the subject matter could be quite heavy or depressing. But the way it was written, if you wanted to, you could make it an easy read, or even entertaining. I think depending on the person reading it, or even the mood an individual might be in on a given day, this book could be seen as a "good book" (or series) on a wide range of levels. Maybe that's why it has been so popular? |
| Ah, quiet here because I was waiting for others to finish...let's begin! I LOVED the first book, The Hunger Games...It was not a subject I thought I would like but it kept me so interested, by the end I ran out and got the next one. Catching Fire... I was torn whether I liked Katnis or not. She seemd so cold...the way she felt about Peeta left me wondering if she even had a heart...Peeta is a character no one can not like! The way he loves Katniss, willing to give it all up for her...don't we all wish we had a partner with such devotion! The capitol, well, having a superstar Hunger games and bringing all the victors back was quite a surprise and just made you HATE the Capitol more than you probably did at the end of the Hunger Games! Thinking they brought back these old timers, one that was like 70 - I forget her name - was a bit, well, disturbing! Loved the way they had a plan to save Katniss and Peeta...but again, poor Peeta...Katnis again seems a bit cold and self centered... Who can NOT hate President Snow???? I'll hold the rest of my coments to see w3hat others think.... All in all the books had me...Loved them and found them addicting...I will say the ending of The MockingJay was heartwarming...Waiting to see if everyone else finsihed before I say more... |
| I did not enjoy the first third of catching fire. Gale was unhappy working in the mines, Katniss was unhappy hunting without Gale, and Peeta was unhappy that Katniss didn't love him back. I found it quite depressing and was actually glad when the quarter quell was announced. Katniss and Peeta being back in the area together, while horrible,...just felt right. The arena being a clock and each hour introducing a different obstacle for the contestants was very creative. I enjoyed reading about how Katniss, Peeta, and their allies survived. I actually did not despise President Snow quite as much in this book. He found out about Katniss and Gale hunting outside the fence and kissing, and he could have executed Katniss for this, but did not. He was less cold than I originally believed. The games were entertaining, but the elaborate ending was a bit confusing to me. The uncertainty about what had happened and what the future held for Katniss and Peeta had me rushing out to buy the last book. Which was actually my least favorite book of the series, but more on that once we start discussing mockingjay. |
Millielover wrote: I actually did not despise President Snow quite as much in this book. He found out about Katniss and Gale hunting outside the fence and kissing, and he could have executed Katniss for this, but did not. He was less cold than I originally believed. I don't think it was a moment of compassion. He only wanted to use the information against her later to keep her under the Capitol's control. Killing her would've only fueled the fire of the revolution. |
| Sorry--I have not had much time to post and I wanted to put some thoughts together. Funny thing: I just found out a whole lot of people I work with are reading The Hunger Games. I will try to keep this to book #2. I thought many of the ideas were very clever: the arena as a clock, for instance. And very interesting because you get a bigger sense of what life was like for other tributes, not just Katniss and Peeta (or Rue), and how it all becomes a horrible trap you cannot escape. Haymitch's drinking was the only way he could cope with having to mentor two young kids each year who would surely be killed in a grisly manner for the entertainment of others. I really felt the growing sense of horror and then anger over what the Capitol was doing re: quarter quell, and how it was surely done as another opportunity to 'legitimately' kill Katniss. And how at the same time, a resistance was quietly building, with Katniss very oblivous to it, until the end, just as she had been very oblivious to Peeta's obvious affection and love for her. I think it is interesting in a way: Katniss legitimately had been very angry with her mother for falling into a deep depression after her father died, but in a way, Katniss did the same thing. She really closed down emotionally, focussed only on what helped her ensure that her family would survive. She didn't really realize that Gale loved her or that Peeta did and was only vaguely aware, in the first book only when it was a matter of life/death that she was beginning to care for Peeta as well. In the second book, this is echoed when Peeta hits the forcefield and has to be revived. She is so focused on survival -- hers and Peeta's as well as her family's, that she remains pretty oblivious to the fact that at least some of the other tributes in the quell have an obvious agenda and are willing to die to make sure that she and Peeta live---for reasons that go beyond their personal survival. I agree with ButterStotch: Pres. Snow just wanted something to hold over Katniss, to try to make her more controllable. He's beyond despicable, but in the end, I don't think he was the worst person. |
| I think Pres Snow and the one trying to take his position ( I forget her name now as I finsihed the books a while ago) are both monsters in their own way! Pres Snow, evil in his entire being - the games, the victor anniversary games - all about money and entertainment. The other one, trying to trick Katniss! Ha ha, came bck to haunt them both didn't it! I think everyone sees Katniss as an intrusion. The "world" loves her. The other top people see her as a threat to their importance. Poor katniss doesn't seem to realize this! But I wonder if she was as "dumb" as they made her out to be... Very sad with her visiting her old home town...that part of the book was depressing to me...But I guess that is what its like for people living in a war zone...sad... The last book, The Mockingjay, kept my attention. Peeta with his amnesia was a good twist...And the ending, well, him and Katniss getting together and having children was sort of predictable.... All in all, I ejoyred all three books. Many people at work are reading them and one said her son at age 13 was reading it as requried reading for his class! Glad I had the opportinity to read these books so I can sound a bit up to date with everyone else in the world! |
| It was Coin, the leader of District 13. To me, she was an even bigger monster than Snow, although not by much. I think that it would have been a pretty big let down if Katniss and Peeta had not ended up together in the end, but still, so much of the book was so sad. I think that the character of Katniss was drawn in such a way that she had such integrity, such innocence, such purity of purpose--to keep those she loved alive--that it was believable that she acted only for those reasons, not for any personal or political gain. This allowed her to be believably transformed into a symbolic emblem of a revolution. There's a great deal of play between innocence and cynicism in this book that strikes just the right balance, as a book and given the target audience, and does it so well that it works for older adults as well. It would not have felt right, after all of the horror of the 3 books, for there to be a bright, happy ending. There was happiness, at the end, but very measured, weighed down with a burden of all that Katniss and Peeta--and everyone else had gone through, all that they had lost. And a determination to ensure that those who died would not be forgotten. |
Ashley wrote: I think everyone sees Katniss as an intrusion. The "world" loves her. The other top people see her as a threat to their importance. Poor katniss doesn't seem to realize this! But I wonder if she was as "dumb" as they made her out to be... I don't think she was portrayed as dumb in any way-- just as a 16 year old girl. Even though her priorities aren't the typical frivolous girl stuff that a lot of 16 year olds are obsessed with, she still really only sees things from her point of view and hasn't matured enough emotionally to understand her significance outside of the purpose that she has for herself (which is to just feed her family and ensure their survival). She just doesn't understand that the very things that she considers ordinary or uninteresting to other people are exactly what people are drawn to. |
| I don't think that Katniss was dumb at all. But she was truly so focused first on her family's survival, then on Peeta's survival and then finally, on the survival of all of them that she really had no energy left to consider anything else. She was never going to be someone who saw, consciously, the bigger, political picture. But her instincts were very true: In the first book, for her 'talent' she shot the apple in the roasted pig's mouth, right on the judge's table. In the second, she fashioned a noose and symbolically hung a corpse of the murdered Games Maker from the first book. In the final book, she again goes off script and assassinates the biggest monster, President Coin, knowing that Pres. Snow was right: Coin was the one who masterminded the murder of children and her own rebel forces who were saving them, for pure political reasons. And Katniss knew, had to know that President Snow was near death anyway: he kept bleeding and had been years. It would have been very unlikely that he would have still been given all of the necessary medical treatment to keep him alive at that point. Just alive enough to be executed. Katniss showed not only tremendously great instincts for doing what was right, but she took enormous risks of her own death in order to do them. |
| I liked the first two books. But the third one was way too dark for me. Too many violent deaths, too much despair, and just a flicker of light. Too much misery, people who fell in their own traps, too much twistednes. Even the end, with Peeta and Katniss' children in view, was depressing. Yes, I know eventually it was supposed to get better and better with each news generation. But for me the first one, the kids of Peeta and Katniss and alike, cannot be called "lucky" just because of not having to participate in hunger games. What kind of children would be raised by broken people with unstable minds? How is harmony achieved in such families? |
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