Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Book 23 – The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

I was already curious about The Hunger Games when I revisited an old YA PA novel I had liked as a teen, The City, Not Long After.  I had this notion that today's YA PA would ramp up on the violence and sex.  Thankfully, the violence was not as gratuitous as I was afraid it might be, and there was zero sex, let alone romance.

During our vacay, Olman spotted a hardcover copy of THG at our first B&B and promptly read it.  So he gave me the heads up that it was going to be a quick and addictive read thanks to the tight narrative, efficient pacing and generous amount of action.  Ingredients for the perfect beach novel! The only thing that annoyed me was how unrealistically naive the awkwardly named Katniss was about the opposite sex.  Naïve to the point of daftness. 

Though I appreciate Katniss as a strong and self-reliant teenage girl who taught herself to hunt (unlike the lame, milktoast Bella Swan from Twilight) and understand that she may have some trust issues since her mother went catatonic after her father died, but does the same intelligence, cunning and intuition she uses for hunting game just automatically switched off when it comes to reading guys?  Katniss' innocence and convenient obliviousness in matters of attraction is simply too trite for my liking.

Though I’m looking forward to the movie adaptation with Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss, I don’t have a strong compulsion to check out the sequels (unless an available copy magically lands on my lap, like it practically did with the first).  At least we have continued the tradition of leaving THG at a B&B in Lunenberg (the lovely Pelham House where resides two friendly ginger cats and an English Golden named Drum).

Since I still have a few reviews to hammer out, and I pretty much feel the same way as Olman (I also read it right after he did), I’m going to let Olman’s review speak for the both of us!

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