Hungry After the Hunger Games

Just about twenty-four hours ago, I finished reading the Hunger Games books. Each book took me two days to read, spread out over two weeks. Last night, I read the last page, closed the cover, and waited. I sorted out my emotions, went back through the story mentally, and waited some more. Told Jason I had finished the series. He asked “So what’d you think?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m not sure I liked it.” That’s the answer I finally came up with.

I was hesitant to write this post in the face of these books’ enormous popularity. After all the hype I'd heard  about them, I was ready to embrace them, ready to love them. So many of my friends are fans. And yet, I can't say that I love them. I can't say I'd read them again. I don’t want to step on toes here, but I feel strongly enough about this story to share my honest opinion with you.

I liked the first book. I enjoyed the movie, too. A little tough to swallow in places, but an excellent beginning to a larger story. Books 2 and 3? Not quite what I hoped they’d be. Interesting? Yes! Well written? Absolutely. A good story that resonated and inspired me? Weeeelllll . . .

I think what I liked least about the books was the sheer volume of violence. The first book wasn’t too bad, but the author really ramps up the violence in #2 and #3. She invents more and more creative ways to kill people. And they’re always grusome, vivid, and psychologically perverse. If these books are made into movies and continue to stick to the story, they’ll probably be rated R.

At first, I was shocked by the violence. The brutality of it. The senselessness of it. But the “shock and awe” factor soon wore off and I began to wonder why the author needed to tack on so much carnage. Certainly by the time you’re into Catching Fire, you’re already convinced that the Captiol is pure evil. Heck, halfway through the first book, I was ready to launch a rebellion and overthrow the Capitol myself. We’re ready to see the bad guys lose. We’re rooting for the girl and the guy(s). So why the continuous, copious bloodshed? A little goes a long way. Less can actually be more, serving to highlight the evil your protagonist is fighting, instead of bashing readers over the head with it.

That’s how I felt when I finished the book last night. Bashed up. Emotionally gut-punched. In the last chapters, it was like riding one big wave after another. Big bad thing would happen. Character would recover just in time for another big bad thing to happen. Rinse and repeat. And that kind of roller coaster ride leads to another complaint I have about these books: a lack of happy moments.

Throughout most of the books, Katniss is never really happy. At best, she’s grateful for the moments when she doesn’t have to fight for survival (which are few). But she is almost never happy. That presents a problem for the reader because if the protagonist is never happy, what is she fighting for anyway?

Now I don’t want to knock Katniss’ heroism. She fights tooth and nail for the safety of her family and those she cares about. But how much stronger would the story be if the author had written in some happy scenes with those people? Moments that mattered. Moments that made you care about those relationships and to understand why Katniss would fight so hard for them? We barely see her mother or Prim throughout the story. There are some nearly-happy scenes with Gale and Peeta, but they are brief at best and don’t usually end well. The lack of happy moments, and the resulting large amount of difficult, scary, emotional, dangerous moments, is draining after a while. Main characters need a break now and then. To refresh. To remember what’s important. Readers need those breaks, too.

Something else nagged at me as I read. Katniss doesn't really change. She's basically the same character from beginning to middle to end. Perhaps a bit more compassionate. A bit less introverted. But basically the same. And that bothers me, because characters are supposed to change. Look at great stories from the past, the classics, and many best-sellers, and you will see this principle at work: Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Frodo Baggins in Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter. Eregon. The four Pevensie children who visit Narnia. They each undertake a journey that transforms them. If they were cowardly at the beginning, they are brave at the end. If they were selfish, they become generous. Readers look for such transformations, crave them even, because they give us hope. If a character can change for the better, maybe we can too. I wish Hunger Games offered such a transformation for Katniss.

One last note. Somewhere in the pages of The Hunger Games, I became uncomfortably aware of a masterful stroke of genius on the author’s part. By deciding to read the book, I made myself a spectator of the Hunger Games. Cruel and brutal though they were, I read and was entertained. Just like the Capitol's citizens, watching their television screens, waiting to see what happens next. I don’t like this realization, this position the author put me in. I don’t want to identify with the Capitol. And yet, I voluntarily picked up this book and decided to read it. Even though I won’t condone the dystopian government, neither did I stop watching.

I’m not sure what that says about me, or about the millions of other people who are buying and reading these books. Are we bored with happy stories? Are we hungry for something that feels more “real” and less “fairy tale”? Or have we, like the people in the Capitol, acquired an appetite for blood?

What are your thoughts? Are you a fan? If you are, what was it about the books that you liked? What compelled you to keep reading?