What are the hunger games? Why have I never heard of it until last week? 
What are the hunger games? It’s a pretty popular trilogy of books for Young Adults, movie soon coming out.
Why have I never heard of it until last week? Because you don’t follow YA books?
I am far from a young adult, and I admit I enjoyed the books a lot. I’m looking forward to the movie.
I’m not sure how I tripped across them - I think someone recommended them to me. Anyway I was having insomnia one night. I finished up the first, and downloaded the second off Amazon. THAT is what I love about my Kindle - freaking 3 am and I was curled up on the couch enjoying a brand new book.
That day I didn’t fall asleep until 8 am either. :eek:
Okay, but what is it about?
Without spoiling much, it’s a dystopia where a central city rules over the outlying districts and forces them to submit 2 children every year to deadly combat for the amusement of the city’s population.
The Hunger Games is a young adult novel written by Suzanne Collins. It was originally published in hardcover on September 14, 2008, by Scholastic.[1] It is written in first person and introduces sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem where the countries of North America once existed. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, holds absolute power over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games are an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12 to 18 from each of the 12 districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle in which only one person can survive.
From Wiki.
See also:
Battle Royale
The Condemned
The Running Man
Welcome to the SDMB, Everyman. Since it turns out that this is about a movie based on some popular books, I’ll move this to Cafe Society, our arts forum.
twickster, MPSIMS moderator
Hmmm… I should read this. Generally, I don’t like reading; but, this sounds interesting.
see also: The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (pseudonym for Stephen King)
:eek:
Really, when people say they don’t like reading, I just assume they haven’t found something they like yet. Hope you try it and enjoy it.
Have you considered audio books? Great for commuting or long car trips.
I generally don’t like YA books but I thought these were entertaining and MUCH better than Twilight.
Too young to drive.
Maybe. . . it reminds me of Holes. . . it’s pretty juvenile and kinda stupid, but where Holes has a sense of humor about the whole thing, Hunger Games, takes itself very seriously. It also reminds me of Coyote a little.
If you like kinda juvenile literature, like Holes or Coyote, then you might like it.
The Hunger Games may describe either the first part of Suzanne Collins’ speculative fiction/post-apocalyptic trilogy, or the entire trilogy. The first movie is to be released on the 23rd of March.
The series follows the adventures of Katniss Everdeen, a young girl living in the poor nation of Panem, the blasted remains of what was once the United States of America in a not-to-distant future where war and natural disasters have taken their toll on the world and the human race at large.
Panem is divided into “districts” of varying size and population that each concentrate on producing a specific resource (Katniss lives in District 12 - formerly Appalachia - where they mine coal) for redistribution under the harsh totalitarian regime of The Capitol, a shining metropolis nestled in the mountains of what used to be Colorado.
Approximately 75 years prior to the first novel’s beginning, The Capitol brutally put down a rebellion by the thirteen outlying districts, reducing one of them to a charred, uninhabitable wasteland and enslaving the other twelve. Thereafter, each year, The Capitol forces the remaining districts to surrender a young man and young woman as “tribute” for participation in a nationally televised gladitorial battle (royale? - see msmith537’s link, above) to the death in a specially-constructed arena.
Katniss becomes the girl tribute from District 12. With all twelve districts contributing, that would make for 24 combatants, and the only way she can win is to make sure the other 23 die before she does!
There’s your setup. To whet your appetite, watch the long trailer and decide if you want to read the first book before the film comes out.
I’m surprised there aren’t more Hunger Games-inspired threads here in Cafe Society. I saw one that was obviously some kid who didn’t read the book trying to get us to do his homework for him, but, c’mon - not one request for Capitol lamb-stew-over-rice or roast wild groosling recipes?
Yes, I am aware there is already an unofficial cookbook out.
That’s how I got through The Hunger Games and Catching Fire so quickly. Now that I have Mockingjay on my iPod, I expect to have the entire trilogy finished before the film premieres.
I can make it through all three books on the way to and from the office and save my actual book-reading time for Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
I think The Hunger Games is great for someone who generally doesn’t like reading. It’s a very easy and fast paced read.
The Hunger Games books are interesting: on the one hand, they’re well-written (albeit not particularly original) juvenile science fiction with a well defined world and surprisingly effective action sequences; on the other hand, it’s very much from the Twilight school of teen girl romances, with a Mary Sue protagonist caught between two perfect boys who are madly in love with her. I enjoyed it pretty much in spite of myself.
That last point is (checks forum) not entirely fair. Katniss is not a Mary Sue, either in the popular or the true definition of that term. Think about it: what are the first two things we learn about Katniss? Answer: She loves her sister, and she has no problem drowning kittens. That’s not a Mary Sue.
Katniss is defines by her flaws, which a Mary Sue is not. She has one trait, one single trait, that veers barely into unbelievable territory, without quite crossing the border, namely her archery skills.
Quite frankly I’m tired of people who think “Competent young female character”=“Mary Sue”.
As for Gale and Peeta, sure they both love her. Describing either one as “perfect boy” is patently ridiculous. Gale is quite consistently throughout described as an asshole, and Katniss hates the fact that he is in love with her. Peeta is a bit of a lovesick puppy, but quite a realistic one. The relationships between the characters read entirely believably to me. And she is never “caught between” them in the teen romance way.
I quite enjoyed the Hunger Games, and I do in fact read a lot - though I admit I have a soft spot for dark-themed young adult fiction. I thought it was pretty well written, if not exactly groundbreakingly original. A solid effort, entertaining, with an engaging main character set in a well-realized universe. There’s a good reason that it stands out in the market and has generated interest.