I'm not one to give into trends just because everyone else is doing them. Just because something is popular doesn't necessarily mean that it is good, so before I read a trendy book or shell out the money to see a big-name film, I check to see what critics are saying about it and how friends with similar tastes feel. I put off reading Eat, Pray, Love because every Oprah-watching soccer mom I ever met swore by it, and I don't usually have the same tastes in books as they do; but after seeing the author speak in a TED talk, I gave the book a chance and loved it. I was anxious to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, especially after a movie adaptation was announced, but after the advice of a similar-minded friend who said "don't waste your time," I chose not to read it.
So when everyone and their mother started talking about The Hunger Games, I was only somewhat interested. Another YA trilogy about a teenage girl? There are a million of those out right now, filling up the somewhat depressing "Supernatural Romance" shelf in the teen section at Barnes & Noble. Not worth my time. But then people started telling me I needed to read it - people I majored in English with at college, well-read people studying to be teachers, basically everyone who loved the same books I did. So I decided to give it a chance, picked up a copy at the bookstore - and read the first book in less than two days. I was hooked.
I described the first novel to my sister as a cross between Harry Potter and The Giver. Suzanne Collins writes much like J.K. Rowling, with simple fluid words, captivating characters, and forward-marching plots that leave you telling yourself, just one more chapter, then I'll stop for a while. And much like when I read Rowling's books, I couldn't put them down and devoured them almost all in one sitting. The Harry Potter series, The Giver, and The Hunger Games trilogy have one pivotal thing in common: they are using the experiences of a single character in order to teach the reader a much larger lesson about life. Potter is about friendship, loyalty, doing what's right in the face of adversity. The Giver is about remembering your past, gaining knowledge, learning what it means to be human. The Hunger Games is about protecting the innocent, ending senseless wars, and doing what is right for your community.
The first novel had me captivated. Katniss is a different type of heroine: tomboyish, intelligent, and brave, but views herself as no one special and has a hard time understanding what everyone else sees in her. She is compassionate, although she doesn't like to show weakness; is pretty, but in a simple way; and responsible almost to a fault. She's complicated - which makes her realistic. The first book introduced us to Panem, the country governed by the spoiled and treacherous Captial, and the Games, which were contrived to put each of the twelve Districts into their place by forcing them to watch their children fight each other to the death on live television as if it were a horrible version of Survivor mixed with American Idol. But despite the pageant-like interviews, the training, the blood-thirsty teenagers and cruel Gamemaker's twists that reminded me of The Truman Show, Katniss and her fellow tribute Peeta buck the system, getting the Capitol to let both of them survive by pretending to be in love and drawing on the emotions of the audience.
The second novel shows us just how vile the Capitol really is. In a power-play after being upstaged from a couple of teenagers from the least important district, they announce that the next Games, in honor of their 75th year, will be comprised of previous winners fighting to leave one victor alive. Think Survivor: All-Star but with people ranging from 17 to 80, many of whom have gone nearly insane after surviving their own games only to have to serve as a mentor to other young tributes and watch them die year after year. This rag-tag group of people are forced to compete and quietly bind together in order to break out of the arena and escape to the supposedly-destroyed District 13, where they start a rebellion against the Capitol.
Katniss finds herself at the center of the rebellion, as its symbol, the Mockingjay. In the third book we learn that her hometown has been destroyed and many of its people lost their lives. Kind-hearted Peeta has been captured and tortured into believing he hates Katniss. The president has a personal vendetta against her. She is injured and traumatized over the fact that she has caused all of the problems the world is now facing. I keep having to remind myself that she's only 18 and has experienced so much death, destruction and heartbreak. It's no wonder she is often hiding in closets. When she regains some strength she starts visiting other districts in hopes of rallying the troops and giving the rebellion some hope for their future. Eventually she and other members of the rebellion take the capital - but not without the loss of plenty more lives, including that of her beloved sister, which sets her over the edge. The leader of District 13 takes over as president and proposes a new version of the Games, this time pitting the survivors of the Capitol leaders against each other. Katniss, who seems to be the only one seeing the big picture, realizes that as long as someone tries to gain power by force and punishment, nothing will ever truly change. So she kills the president from 13, forever cancelling the Hunger Games as a national show of power. Finally she is sent back to her home in 12, to live out the rest of her life, knowing that despite all she did to protect her little sister, she couldn't save her in the end.
And now for the Epilogue. At the end of the series, Katniss is a mess. Her sister is dead, her mother has left her, her best friend is never coming back, and the deaths of all of those she was forced to kill or inadvertently caused to die haunt her forever. But a new Panem is emerging, one that is a much better place than the one she grew up in. And as the years go by she and Peeta come to rely on each other again, and in the end they are together, raising their children, collecting and honoring the memories of all those who fought in the Games, getting through the hard times by focusing on the good ones.
I know a lot of people were disappointed with the end of the series. I believe that it was a perfect ending in the sense that it could not have happened any other way. After everything that happened - the Games, the rebellion, the deaths - there is no way there could have been a happy white-picket-fence ending. At the end of the day, this was a tale of war and loss and coming out on the other side - it was not intended as a love story. I wanted Katniss and Peeta to live happily ever after just like everyone else, but given the life they led and the world they live in, it would have been a disservice to portray them as a perfect couple in such a broken and imperfect world. Personally, I can't think of a better way to end the book than with them, together, surviving, and happy, or at least as happy as they can be. Was it sad to see them afraid to have children, tortured by nightmares, disturbed by the world around around them? Of course. But that is what war does to people. It's not pretty. When I closed the third and final book my heart felt heavy for them, as it did at the end of 1984 when despite everything Winston does to rebel , he finds himself betraying his true love and succumbing to Big Brother. Or at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, when the Chief suffocates McMurphy for his own good. Or in Never Let Me Go, where Kath must guide her friends toward death as they are forced to donate their organs as they are were clones created for spare parts.
Have you seen the film Stranger Than Fiction with Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson? I features Ferrel as a man who finds himself to be the main character in a novel being written by Thompson. She has decided that his character will die, and doesn't want to change the ending, because as a writer, when you create a character they take on a life of their own and sometimes you have to let them do things that you don't want them to do. It's what makes them real. I remember seeing an interview with Rowling where she said how much she cried when she killed Cedric, because she didn't want him to die, but knew he had to. That's what happened with Katniss and Peeta - Collins couldn't have written them happy-go-lucky, it wasn't in their nature. And I'm glad they weren't forced into that role.
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