The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

[dangermousie]

I finally got around to reading this book (peer pressure!) and all I can say is: I liked this better when it was called Battle Royale and written by Koushun Takami.

HG was a fun but forgettable read, dreadfully simplistic and with some seriously wonky world-building, but my main issue is that I kept comparing it to Battle Royale and the comparison was not in Hunger Games' favor. Battle Royale was a visceral reading experience for me, one that literally gave me nightmares. It didn't pull punches or create easy outs. I desperately cared for the characters because they seemed so average, like what I could have been. In Hunger Games, other than the general dislike of murder, I didn't care for any of them - all the characters except Katniss and, to an extent, Peeta were not complex individuals with their own lives and goals, but undeveloped cypher obstacles to our protagonist's success. Moreover, the ompetitors' background made it so far removed from modern life that it made them less relatable than the average kids of BR. And there was the fact that BR characters had all sorts of preexisting relationships.

There is also the fact that HG is pedictable where BR is not.

It bothers me to no end that Suzanne Collins claims to have never heard of Battle Royale. But even if somehow that was the case, why would I love an inferior version of the same story when I have already loved and read the original take.

Comments

[algelic.livejournal.com]

So true. I completely agree with everything you said.

Plus, Fujiwara Tatsuya was in the Battle Royale movies and therefore elevated my love for BR to a whole new level! I really love that actor.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not bad or anything but hopelessly derivative and overrated.

[happahaole.livejournal.com]

Aw really?
All of my friends who read HG loved it, even the guys lol
They say it's a gripping read because they're a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter.
I want to read HG just because I'm dying to see the movie (the trailer looks awesome).
Probably, having read BR prior to HG, makes HG seem amateur in comparison.
I've never read BR or watched the movie, but have you ever read a little of the Battle Royal manga? It's sooo disturbing.....and the drawings make it worse.....
http://www.mangafox.com/manga/battle_royale/v01/c003/3.html

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

There is no way I was going to go for the manga - the book literally gave me nightmares so to see graphics would be doubly horrifying. Plus, to put it in images seems exploitative somehow.

I am very much in the minority with HG so you should probably check it out for yourself.

[spunspider.livejournal.com]

lol, THG is totally inferior. i think its USP for me is the different world format, even though it's not complex or assuredly built, it has potential. that's what i got from the movie trailer too, i'm not enthusiastic about the cast but the vibe is great. actually, thinking about it, if the story was set not in the game arena but around some sort of plot 'at home' so to speak, it may have been more interesting. still fun though, but the end of the trilogy was depressing without real point.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I am going to check the movie out because it looks entertaining, but yes, no high hopes.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I've never read or watched Battle Royale or felt any inclination to, and haven't been able to get into this book the couple times I tried (mostly the tense...first person present tense is just something I can't do) but I am planning to watch the movie, though I don't anticipate it as much as the Snow White movies or Brave. But based on what i've heard, I give Collins the same look I give Rowling when she claims to not have read Gaiman's Books of Magic.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Pretty much agreed.

The movie looks fun. I've heard rumors of casting racefail but I confess I never pay attention to book characters' ethnicities unless it's really mentioned over and over again, so I don't know the details.

I have no problem if people think Hunger Games is vastly superior to Battle Royale - tastes differ. I don't even mind if SC was inspired by BR. It just drives me nuts when she says she's never even heard of it (really? and her editors either?) I am not familiar with Gaiman's books of magic but my point is the same there as with Collins - the author might not have heard of them, but nobody in the publishing house did either?

About Battle Royale - if you ever do have the inclination to check it out, imo the book is much superior to the movie.

[walkwithheroes.livejournal.com]

Yes to this entire post.

Back when HG first came out, I bought it. I thought it would be interesting, but I stopped half-way through. I was just so bored and I just kept thinking that it was too similar to Battle Royale. And like you, I just do not believe that no one at the publishing house had heard of BR. It honestly makes me wonder how the novel and its squeals did in Japan.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine they did too well - BR is pretty iconic.

The thing with HG is that it's a pleasant read. But BR left me literally shaking. It's such a great exploration of humans in extremis.

[animeshon.livejournal.com]

I had a feeling that it would be a little like Battle Royale which is why I have been putting it off. Everyone who is raving about the series to me hasn't read Battle Royale though so you are the first to confirm my concerns!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd probably like it a lot more if I never read BR.

[sisterjune.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA. Oh man I am waiting for the haters to come streaming in. I hated this series. I only am familiar with the first book but my friends inform it gets worse. My problems with it were not exactly like yours but I do agree that battle royale was waaaaaaay better. I could go into all my issues with hunger games but i will spare you cause it gets long and expletive ridden lol. I think i would hate it less if it wasnt so damn popular. WHY is it so popular. I DONT UNDERSTAAAAAND.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Please please get into your issues. Expletives are fine :)

I am super curious now.

[spazzy06.livejournal.com]

I couldn't make an emotional connection with The Hunger Games either. I read it a few months ago and I found it underwhelming. I didn't think the romance or the science fiction aspect of the book was particularly strong. I haven't watched Battle Royale, but I expected The Hunger Games to be a grittier book than it actually was. TBH, I thought the author went too easy on Peeta and Katniss during the game.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought the author gave them way too many easy outs.

I am not the hugest fan of BR movie, but I think the book is amazing.

[morwen_peredhil]

I've never read BR, but I found the HG trilogy quite disappointing: simplistic and anvilicious, full of moments when I thought the author made the odd/wrong/easy writing decision, bashing one over the head with author-mouthpiece speechification, and with one of the most blinkered and annoying protagonists in recent memory. I can't even tell you how much I hated Katniss by the last book. Didn't ship her with either of the (equally annoying) candidates, either. Ugh!

I can't figure out why people think the Hunger Games books are so great at all, since I thought it failed, and badly, on a number of levels. I suppose it's marginally better than Twilight?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I thought the author presented so many easy outs - none of the characters we liked got hurt - they were all so poorly developed that I just didn't care. And it's not because of lack of ink. I hate to bring BR again, but that book managed to make me care for characters who got all of two pages devoted to them because those two pages got character sketches which were absent here. Perils of first-person narration, I suppose.

[shima-sama.livejournal.com]

I was reluctant to read the Hunger Games series originally because I'd seen the Battle Royale film and figured it was a poor re-hashing. (Plus the person who recommended it to me was an avid reader of Twilight. Eep.) But I can't say I had the same reaction as you. Perhaps it's because I only saw the film, and not read the book? But I actually thoroughly enjoyed the first two novels of the series (the third got a little less enthralling for me), and I thought the world she built was pretty interesting.

I also don't think Battle Royale as the monopoly on mass fights-to-the-death, so the idea that Collins could have gotten her idea from somewhere else seems incredibly plausible to me. BR is great, and it terrified me, but I don't think terrifying its readers was what Hunger Games was about. That's why I don't see it as a BR re-hash, because it's really not trying to do the same thing. It's not saying this could happen to you, after all.

*shrug* Just an opinion. I love them both but for very, VERY different reasons.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I don't even mind that much that I think it's a BE rehash. It's just I found it so inferior, I kept wondering 'what's the point?' But mmv.

[cocori.livejournal.com]

I haven't see or read BR but I plan on reading it eventually. I wanted to read THG after the book I'm currently reading but I don't know if that'll ruin BR for me like the opposite for ruined for you.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

No idea but I nighly recommend BR :)

[boycottbananas.livejournal.com]

I haven't read or watched Battle Royale (I don't even want to think I might be traumatized for life), nor have I read The Hunger Games, and even I would say that BR is probably better than HG, and when someone told me about HG, the first thing I thought was, "Isn't that basically Battle Royale?"

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. Admit it, Ms. Collins!

[timescout.livejournal.com]

Heh, what a coincidence. I've read neither BR or THG but alexandral has been posting about HG during the past few weeks too and her reaction is just about the same as your's. Her last post about "Mockingjay" (the 2nd or the last book?) was rather ragey.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

ooooh, I am off to check.

[elizabennet69.livejournal.com]

I liked Hunger Games because at least it had something seemingly important to say (well in comparison to Twilight or those other vampire series).

Of course it is nowhere near as good as Battle Royale but I never compared them.

The film on the other hand I have doubts about. The trailer looked not so good. Katniss looked well fed and clean (while in the novel she is constantly hungry and very dirty and have lots of bruises etc.)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

The thing is though, I usually have huge problems with YA because I am not a teen myself so I always find YA attempts to address serious issues unbearably simplistic.

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

I do see all the negative points people are pointing at this trilogy, BUT I still think that the overall thematic and direction taken by the books is a very very interesting one. And not an easy road either which I give props to the author.

Of course, the one thing I totally agreee with you is the comparison with Battle Royale. I think that us who have read the BR novel were just smirking in the beginning tbh. Still, it doesn't take back the merits of the HG itself in my opinion.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

To me, it does take some merit away from a book if it's derivative, but it's mainly that I didn't find HG particularly good. I am not big on YA though.

[quaggy]

I do agree with you about everything. It took me forever to get through the first book, because I just wasn't enjoying them. I won't bother with the other two or with the movies. I think Susan Collins is very derivative... which isn't a bad thing. Shakespeare was too. But she doesn't have the ability to make those derivations come alive on their own merits. Nor do I think she's always aware what she's being inspired by. I think she might be the one that sees something once, unconsciously files it away and the later thinks she's come up with an original idea.

And here's another thing... Now all I know about her official inspirations for the series is what I read on wikipedia. One in the Minotaur myth, which makes sense, but there's also this other story about how she was up late one night watching a reality game show (probably Fear Factor or something of the like) and then switched to a new report about troops in Iraq and the contrast of the two was set in her brain. There was always something about that always rang false with me... but only recently did I realize it was because I had watched a fictional president do exactly what she claimed. There's an episode of West Wing, where President Bartlet goes back and forth between a kid's movie where a bunch of wooden soldiers march out and then look at the real soldiers and back again... and it shows that he's made the decision to send in US troops to stop a genocide. You can rarely trace inspiration to one well scripted moment, but the fact that she can and to something that HAS already appear on television.... it's just weird.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

your second paragraph was super-informative.

Yeah, there was just nothing fresh, profound, or interesting in it, imo.

[equustel.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I like Battle Royale too, but I wouldn't call Collins dishonest for claiming she's never read it - after all, Battle Royale didn't invent this kind of concept. It's straight from history (Roman gladiator games) and Greek myth (Theseus & Crete, the lottery for the sons & daughters).

I enjoy THG for its themes and I do like the characters. However, I understand why some people are nonplussed with it. It's not the most incredible or original book ever written, BUT I do think it's very timely, and I support it simply because I LOVE seeing the Twilight paranormal romance craze usurped by dystopian sci-fi. ;] I am ALL OVER THAT. Sure, it means we'll get an influx of crappily-written SF, but I can stomach that much easier than I can stomach the alternative!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I think HG has a lot more in common with BR than it does with gladiator games or Theseus.

But leaving that aside, I just didn't find it particularly interesting. Sure, it's better than Twilight, but isn't it setting the bar too low?

[pancreatic.livejournal.com]

If you do decide to read further, please stop at Catching Fire. Mockingjay is just awful and gratuitous, with the most lazy ending (in terms of shipping) ever.

I can't think of another fictional work in which NEITHER shipping camp gets rewarded. Even though my ship worked out, the way it happened was such a huge cop out and wasn't satisfying at all. Ugh, just thinking about it makes me rage.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I probably won't read books 2 and 3 and thank you for the heads up!

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I have ranted to much about this in my own Lj, but yes. Collins has never heard of BR? I so do not believe.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Off to read the rants!