Hungry for the Games

I just finished reading The Hunger Games a few days ago. I had been reading the Song of Ice & Fire series and had just finished book four of that series and, well, just needed a break from Mr. Martin’s very epic series. I had gotten a free ePub version of The Hunger Games when I bought my Nook, so I decided to give it a shot.

I have to admit something. Despite it being the first in (apparently) a very popular trilogy and being made into a movie that comes out in a few weeks, I had never heard of The Hunger Games before being offered the free Nook edition. Not even a little bit. Ok, so it’s been years since I worked in a bookstore and was “in the loop” as to popular author and title trends, but I still feel a little bit surprised that I hadn’t even heard of this trilogy. But I digress.

So, I’ve now read the first book. What’s my honest first impression? It’s a little predictable and has a lot of borrowed themes (‘The Lottery’, ‘The Running Man’, ‘Firefly/Serenity’, ‘Survivor’, and Lord of the Flies all come to mind). A friend of mine also asked me if I found it strange that the lead character was a bit of “a moron”. To be fair, I think calling Katniss a “moron” is completely inaccurate. She’s actually very intelligent. She’s just impulsive and doesn’t always stop to think about her actions thoroughly. Ok, and she’s a bit dense when it comes to reading people, particularly when it comes to someone showing genuine love for her, but hey, she’s only 16 (for starters) and she’s also gone through a lot of emotional upheaval.

At any rate, I did enjoy the book, plan on seeing the movie, and do intend to read the remaining two books in the trilogy because I am interested to see where the story goes. But I do have to admit, had it not been given to me for free, I probably wouldn’t have even considered it. It’s nice to be pleasantly surprised by a book and have it turn out to be better than you were expecting it to be.

~ JC