A question for the hive mind!

[bookzombie]

So 'The Hunger Games': any good? I admit I hadn't heard of the books until the film started being talked about. Having a voracious reader of YA fiction in the house I'm always on the look-out for new things to try and I don't really want to inflict another 'Twilight' on anyone...:-)

Comments

[phoebesmum.livejournal.com]

I've avoided them, largely because of the hype, largely because of the fact that much of the hype is spread by those who honestly believe that Twilight is wonderful. And largely because there are an awful lot of YA (and A for that matter!) books out there that deserve equal praise and don't get it.

I'm prepared to be proved wrong.

[owlfish]

I found The Hunger Games to be very compelling, and memorable enough I still occasionally mentally refer to lots of different scenes from it. (The rest of the series is decent and worth reading, but not as strong as the first book.)

I admire it and I'm very glad I've read. To say I liked it, however, might be overstating my comfort with its premise.

[fairest.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed it. Same basic idea as Battle Royale, but with media interaction that skews character responses in a way I find compelling. The sequels are less impressive (I don't buy into the supposed love triangle at all), but book one is definitely worth picking up.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

The first book is compelling and pacy and has interesting characters and the premise is well done. The second book contrives a way to repeat the plot of the first, but it's still entertaining and has enough inventive stuff that I enjoyed it. The third one is a not entirely successful end to the trilogy that tries to do something a bit different and fails almost entirely, but once you've read the first two you'll want to read the third.

It is way better than Twilight - even though I don't really care about the love triangle of THG, at no point did I get bored during an endless chapter about how sparkly anyone was, no one gets carried about for their own safety, and best of all there wasn't 150 pages of boring high school biology classes to wade through at the start.

[clawfoot.livejournal.com]

I've read the trilogy, and although the first is indeed a compelling read, the second book felt very forced and contrived, and the the third just flailed around for a while until the author could stick a "the end" on it and call it done.

I should also mention that I spend the entire trilogy wanting to punch the main protagonist in the face. She's really, really annoying, treats almost everyone around her like crap, and I found some of the way she was written quite unbelievable and/or hugely obnoxious.

I haven't decided if I'll be going to see the movie(s?) yet. I'm not sure putting a real face to Katniss is going to make me like her or want to punch her even more.

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

This is about right, I think.

Lots of good stuff to start off with but I felt the author didn't grasp sociology well enough and cracks appear the longer you go on with it.

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

I only read the first one as the synopsis of the second made it sound very much more of the same, but I do recommend the first one. The author is very clever at working her worldbuilding inside the story so there's very little "as you know, bob" about it. The main character is compelling but not very likeable. To me she feels so socially inept as to be perhaps slightly autistic. She has been doing almost anything to stay alive for so long that she has no thought of being empathic.