“The what games?” I asked. Cue uncool, out-of-date adult syndrome. Wasn’t Twilight the hot book series right now? When did they stop reading those? My students took pity on my ignorance and huddled around me, explaining. In exchange, I had to promise to go and get the book that very night so that I could discuss it with them on Monday. And I’m glad I did. Ladies and gentlemen, the unthinkable has happened. The Twilight saga has been dethroned as the leader in teen literature. The new model is sleeker, smarter, and more compact. It’s action-packed and addicting, with minimal babbling about destiny and soulmates. And it has tastes of a rebellion and independent thinking that poor little Bella couldn’t even dream of.
The Hunger Games, the first book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, is a breath of intellectually fresh air in the sometimes soupy genre of teen literature. The books take place somewhere in the future after North America has been destroyed by natural disasters. The continent, now called Panem, was split into thirteen separate districts. Each district is controlled strictly by one government called The Capitol, a government reminiscent of 1984’s Big Brother (War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength!). Legend has it that early in Panem’s development, the Districts revolted against The Capitol in order to escape the squalor forced upon them. The government defeated districts 1-12 and, in an unnecessary action, obliterated the 13th. After that revolt, The Capitol made their full-time job squashing any future rebellions. They had to find a way to remind the citizens of Panem that they are in total control. From that, The Hunger Games were born.
Once per year, the names of all of the youth, ages 12-18, from each district are added to a massive lottery. Those that need assistance from the government to survive (and they make sure that most do) may receive it in exchange for greater odds of being drawn. A representative chooses one female and one male name from each of the twelve districts. Once the names are selected, those unlucky teens are labeled “Tributes” and whisked away from their lives and their families. Twenty-three of the twenty-four will be murdered within the next few weeks. They are put through a week of training and then tossed into an arena of the government’s design, where the competition begins. From then on, the twenty-four tributes are left to battle to the death – the last one alive is the “winner.” Consider the television show Survivor, except the competitors must murder each other in cold blood.
Not grotesque enough for you yet? The Hunger Games are the Superbowl of Panem. The whole thing is recorded and broadcast to every single citizen as required viewing. They watch gleefully as the young adults starve or freeze to death, catch fire, drown, suffer at the jaws of wild animals, or murder each other. Bets are made on who will be the next murderer, who the lone survivor. Every single detail is recorded, edited, and smacked with a compelling soundtrack until it looks like a Nicholas Sparks movie.
Once I caught the jist of the plot, it was easier to understand why the heroine, Katniss, is so masculine and cold (it took me a full six pages to realize that she was a girl). The book opens to her hunting illegally outside of her district with her best friend Gale, on the morning of The Reaping. Katniss is boyish in her actions and her love for the woods and the hunt, as well as her simple and bitter thought processes. But as her narration continues, the reader learns of her father’s early death, and how she was forced to take over the role of provider for her family – her mother, who became paralyzed with grief, and her little sister, the light of her life. The reader has little time to catch a glimpse of what Katniss’ life is like in the slums of District 12 (called the Seam) before the shit hits the fan. The name of this younger sister, Prim, is chosen from the thousands of slips of paper by the district representative. She has been called as a tribute into the Hunger Games. Without a second thought, Katniss volunteers to take her place.
Katniss is catapulted from the dark, coal-coated world of District 12 to the shining streets of The Capitol. She is thrust in front of hundreds of cameras shaved and painted by a team of publicists, paraded around for the Hunger Games’ opening ceremonies. Throughout training, she meets the other tributes from the other districts (some of which have been training for this opportunity all of their lives – Collins calls these tributes the “careers”, because they make a career out of training for the games) and gets to know the male tribute chosen to compete alongside her from District 12.
From the beginning, Katniss and Peeta (the male tribute) are directed by their team to stick together. While the other tributes maintain their distance – after all, they are going to have to try to murder each other within the next few weeks – the District 12-ers hold hands and make small talk. It becomes clear that the team is trying to play the star-crossed lovers card with the public, to attract some attention to the district, which hasn’t had a winner in years. The more the public supports them, the more of a chance they have to survive the games. And just because Katniss and Peeta live in a dark, futuristic world doesn’t mean they’ve got their hormones figured out – as the story continues, the lines between what their publicists suggest, what they really feel, and what they must do to sway the public all get tangled in a gigantic mess of feelings, adrenaline, and codependency. What’s real, what’s forced, and what’s based out of pure terror?
The rest of the book unfolds smoothly, with such careful pacing that it’s impossible to put the book down between chapters. Collins keeps the story dark and gruesome without being overly gory, somehow communicating the horrific situation without overdoing it. The plot flickers back and forth enough between the Games and the relationship between Katniss and Peeta so that the reader is never bored with one subplot, and the two are weaved together wonderfully at the end. I won’t spoil the book here, because it is just so enjoyable to read.
One of my favorite things about The Hunger Games? Collins doesn’t skimp on the good writing just because she knows her main audience will be reading it in study hall. Sure, the writing isn’t exactly up to par with some contemporary adult fiction. But the main difference between the genres, to me, is that teen authors don’t feel the need to impress as much as adult authors. They can write what they want to write, knowing that their critics are more interested in plot and character than vocabulary and Hollywood connections. It gives the books innocence, as if they are unaware of the rat-race, working at their own pace. There is an openness and simplicity in Young Adult Fiction, which is pleasantly present in Collins’ book.
Katniss is a complex and well-rounded character, sharing her positive and negative personality traits with the reader. She can be stubborn and angry, but those moments are balanced by loyalty and genuineness. She is likeable, of course – if she wasn’t, no one would read – but she’s more realistic than many modern heroines. According to an article on Entertainment Weekly.com by writer Tina Jordan, “Frankly, compared to Katniss, Bella is simply the more passive character: For the most part, things happen to her. Katniss, on the other hand, copes with disaster by strategizing–and bulldozing–her way through the situation.” (http://shelf-life.ew.com/2010/09/21/why-the-hunger-games-isnt-the-new-twilight/) And this, to me, is a wonderful thing; it teaches girls that they don’t have to be agreeable all the time, that strength can be found in the difficult or unpleasant moments, as well.
The Hunger Games’ plot follows some of the most basic and most written-about ideas of all time – the battle of Davd vs. Goliath, of the underdog challenging the overruling bully. Survival in the wilderness, survival of the fittest. Absolute power corrupting, absolutely. In fact, there isn’t much about The Hunger Games that’s groundbreaking, especially considering Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series was released to wide popularity only 5 years ago. The two series are similar in many ways; they both take place in a futuristic dystopia, both feature unusually strong female heroines, both have their characters challenging a government that everyone around them follows without question. But in Uglies, this challenge is a life or death situation. It is Collins who takes it a step further by making the government’s cruelty a game – a game! – which really adds that extra twist of the knife.
But Uglies isn’t the series that’s making the news in its comparison to The Hunger Games – it is, of course, Twilight. The two book series are being mentioned together more and more in the media as the buzz around The Hunger Games grows exponentially. Unfortunately for author Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games was slapped with the label “the next Twilight” the second fourteen-year-old hands started snatching it off of the shelves. But the two series’ are incredibly different. In another snippet from the Entertainment Weekly.com article, Tina Jordan puts it nicely: “Stephenie Meyer’s is more of a traditional romance (populated, I grant you, by some pretty untraditional characters); while Suzanne Collins’ is a tale of war and survival.” To me, the bottom line is this – where Twilight is mostly romantic mush, Hunger Games features sharp, dangerous, and though-provoking situations that call into question the very things that make us human.
If I were a parent, there is no question that I would be sneaking into my children’s rooms and replacing Meyer with Collins while they were out. Let’s look at it this way – while Meyer could be considered a watered down Danielle Steele, Collins can take her place along with Orwell (1984), Lowry (The Giver), and Westerfeld (the Uglies series). She has created a badass heroine who feels no need for leather pants or breast implants, who battles inwardly with both the urge to do good and the need to do evil. Here is a young girl seeing, for the first time, the terrifying truth about her government – that they are blatantly tyrannical, sending their children to die. It teaches children that instead of accepting life point blank, they should question and fight for the things that they don’t understand or don’t agree with. And it shows that those with power do not always handle it the way that they should, and that that is not acceptable.
Will administrators and officials approve that message? My main concern is that this book will end up on the banned/challenged list along with books like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Brave New World, A Clockword Orange, Flowers for Algernon, James and the Giant Peach, and the Harry Potter series. Each of these books make either administrative or government committees uncomfortable enough to have them removed from school curriculums or libraries for a multitude of sins – comments that would be considered disrespectful, racist, communist, anti-religious, dealing with anarchy, beastiality, or witchcraft. And then there are the books that are just “frowned upon” by parents and teachers, which include many stories with female heroines, featuring a child living an unusual lifestyle, or addressing a disability or traumatic event. With its plain questioning of government leadership and morality, clear and unapologetic multiple murders, and a female character that does anything but cry into her petticoats, The Hunger Games don’t carry the message half as subtly as some of the classics that have landed on that list.
But if Twilight, with its blood sucking, dry humping, and body burning has lasted this long, then hopefully The Hunger Games can outlast the censors as well. It would be a shame for teens to lose one of the most enjoyable and worthwhile young adult series I’ve seen in awhile. Preteen or middle aged, I suggest the first book of the series for a fast-paced, thoroughly entertaining and smooth read. Plus, my fourth graders think I’m totally awesome.
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