Here's a short synopsis; The Hunger Games Trilogy is a young-adult science fiction novel written by Suzanne Collins. It introduces sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem where North America once existed. This is where a government working in a central city called the Capitol holds power. In the book, the Hunger Games are an annual televised event where the Capitol chooses one boy and one girl from each of 12 districts to fight to the death. The Hunger Games exist to demonstrate that not even children are beyond the reach of the Capitol's jurisdiction. And the story evolves from there.
I really enjoyed the first novel, at first it was hard to imagine this was a young adult novel with all the killings of children. But it's a very intense and violent story. But it's also very engaging and you start to care about these character right off the bat, which makes it worse when some of them die.
The second book was enjoyable, but it's defiantly felt more like a set up for the third book then the first book did to the second book. The first book felt like a complete novel.. books 2 and 3 felt like a complete novel together.
Book 3 was great 2/3's of the way through and then suddenly this one scene happens (won't spoil it) and everything after that was kind of blah!! It just fell apart and I found myself annoyed. The ending is not bad enough that I would say it detracted from the entire trilogy but I have to say up to that point the story was moving along and everything was tense and great.. and I'm not saying the ending didn't have it's moments but it felt different after that moment.
So would I recommend this series. Short answer Yes!! even with the weak ending the series as a whole was dark, tense and very entertaining.
I just finished reading it last week too. I agree with your overall assessment of the series. I would highly recommend it but warn people that the ending felt a little forced. It certainly didn't follow a normal story-telling trajectory. I wasn't unhappy with the ending - just the way it was told.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I take issue with the fact that the books have been categorized (by the publisher, I imagine) as Young Adult. Just because the protagonist is a teenager doesn't mean that the books are YA! If I had known that the series was supposed to by YA, I probably wouldn't have even bothered reading it. The one teenager I know that read Hunger Games said, "That was really messed up." LOL
I love YA books.. I mean Harry Potter is the ultimate YA books. Suzanne Collins also wrote another series called Gregor and The Underland Chronicles and it's also YA but I totally love that series. Same with Percy Jackson and the Olympians.. another great YA series.
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