The Hunger Games
Grudgingly giving this one more star because I don't hate it quite as much as I did the first time round. Still a pretty bad book. Also Katniss is the worst, still.***
First review, November 2010:
What is the point in this book?
Seriously. This book is completely pointless. It's garbage. I have no idea who on earth it's aimed at. Teenagers in the age range should surely be reading 1984 or Brave New World if they're wanting to start off with some dystopian literature? I'm not even fond of Brave New World, but surely it's a better start than this. Because this is just a MESS. For a start, the writing is dreadful. To be fair, YA literature is not always a bastion of good writing - 90% of it is crap, actually - but this... this stood out. It was hilariously bad. I mean, most of the time I write blogs/reviews/whatever in the middle of the night and I'm more than aware that my syntax/grammar/spelung often suffers for that. But this got PUBLISHED. Even though it could have been written on the back of a cereal packet. With a crayon. It has that weird feeling of being about things that are in no way suitable for children, but having been written with the general vocabulary, clumsiness, and awkwardness of someone with a writing level of a ten-year old.
Then there's the characters. Katniss (fun note: Katniss is a plant, also called Arrowhead. Katniss-the-character is good at archery. Excuse me while I KILL MYSELF) is just rubbish. She is. She's not a convincing human being at all. Pretty much her only attributes are that she: a. runs about, b. shoots things, c. if faced with a choice, will do the stupid thing. Everything about her is irritating. Nothing about her is remotely sympathetic, and mostly, I just hoped she would hurry up and get killed. I also find the way she treats Peeta (another flaming stupid name - try saying that without sounding like a three-year old trying to say Peter) annoying. While he's a horrible "Mary Sue" - for want of a better expression - he's at least trying to be nice to her. But Katniss isn't very good with people being nice to her, or nasty to her, or anything to her. I kind of imagine Katniss a bit like my dog. My dog doesn't like people much, despite the fact that everyone loves him. He doesn't even like my boyfriend, who loves dogs and despairs at this fact. He ignores people, runs away from them, and generally acts like the majority of people who don't live in my house are not in fact there - he only acknowledges us because we are the BRINGERS OF FOOD. This is because my dog is a grumpy bastard. The only things he does like are food, water, sleeping and pissing everywhere, much like Katniss (I may be exaggerating here, but you get the gist). Thing is, my dog's adorable and fuzzy and sometimes if you're lucky he'll sleep on your feet and heat them up (but not because he likes you). Katniss doesn't even have the courtesy to do that. She's just. There. Being shit and grumpy.
Anyway. Back to something vaguely resembling the topic at hand. The plot is a horrible cliche. It's painful. I read the first two yesterday, and am a few chapters into the third one, and I'm yet to discover if Collins has ever had an original thought. There's no character that isn't drawn with broad brushstrokes, no character that behaves remotely believably, just... nothing to like about this book. Also there's no sense of humour about the thing at all, and while often I CAN get over this, it's about the only thing that would have redeemed this from the heep. I don't really know why I'm still reading, except to confirm that what I think happens at the end does happen. I know that's what the internet is for, but I seem to be a glutton for punishment. Just... don't bother. It's not worth your time. There is nothing good here. Read anything else instead.
