The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

It is difficult not to fall in love with a book about killing teenagers, romantic relationships with murderers, pink haired girls, people with their tongues cut out, and governments that are so fake that it gives you indigestion; well, at least for more than 800,000 people who have boughten this book. It is not that the storyline is grotesque, it is that the story line is completely boring. I did read a little more than half of the book.... I know a good job on my part. I also thought that the storyline was original and somewhat entertaining, until I got to the second page. The only way I could see it being cool is if I was fourteen years old. I am not surprised that the book is so popular, since books like Twilight are popular.

It takes place in some made up world or something cheesy like that (it is not worth my time to go look it up) with the main character being a young girl by the name of Katniss. The world is split up into different districts and she belongs in district 12. The government is supposed to be horrible, but it does not sound that bad to me. Anyways, the government puts on a show every year where one person from every district are chosen to kill one another in a game, with an extremely original title; the Hunger Games. Katniss takes the place of her younger sister to enter the games and begins a love relationship with some guy whom she is competing against, totally leaving her “true love” behind in District 12. The battle begins and so on and so forth. Nothing exciting. That is the story. That is it. I just told it in one paragraph, with about the same amount of description as Suzanne Collins, she just drags it out to 374 pages.

I would rather watch the same episode of Blues Clues four times in a row, which by the way is one of the most researched shows on television, than ever read Hunger Games again. But wait... this book probably is meant for the people that can watch the same episode four times in a row without getting bored, just as they can read 374 pages of garbage while completely ingesting the story. 

With stale writing and flat descriptions, for example in this mental monologue by Katniss, “I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people.” Are you serious.... You really hate owing people, huh? I could not have said that better myself. “Maybe if I had thanked him at some point, I'd be feeling less conflicted now.” It is so sad that you are so internally conflicted and we can all tell how much it affects you emotionally. “I thought about it a couple of times, but the opportunity never seemed to present itself.” Intense isn’t it? She even thought about it, which is more than what the author can say about writing this book. “And now it never will. Because we're going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death.” So descriptive and exhilarating. Let’s sell a book by using phrases like ‘lets fight to the death.’ “Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won't seem sincere if I'm trying to slit his throat.” How can you not help but laugh when you read this? I can picture Will Ferrel saying this twenty years ago in a SNL skit with his whinny sarcastic voice.

The love story is the most ridiculous part of the whole book. Some would argue that it is for a bunch of young to middle aged girls who do not read romantic novels because it is too romantic so they read a novel about a love like when they were in fifth grade. Remember when you used to play tag and tag the people you liked... romantic isn’t it. I will not go as far as to say that they think realistic love is not good enough so they revert to fantasizing about young kids, but some say that that is why the Hunger Games is so popular.

I do have to say though, that if the Hunger Games was real, I would join it. I think I would do pretty well. In fact, forget the whole bad government thing, this would be a top selling show today. The government in the book were smart for putting the hunger games together. I mean, people love that kind of stuff, just look at all the people who have bought this book. But back to me in the Hunger Games.... I would go all sorts of crazy on people. My weapon of choice would definitely be my Nerf N-Strke Stampede ECS nerf gun (check out the link below for a video of my weapon of choice.) Forget the bow and arrow when you have a nerf gun produced by Hasbro. It would be fun too. Afterwards, I would probably write a book about my experience and sell over a million copies, but before I published it I would make sure to throw in a cheesy love story so it would sell better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=80vXxYK6Y_o#!

-Scott