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Being loyal and darling and a role model. Just wake up. Life is happening and some pretty dark things are happening while you are thinking that Katniss is the representative of the club called liberation.
For me, in a bookish way it stands for one bad one night stand, kiss and forget. But as always, readers tend to bring fiction to their real life and just as many think that kittens and superheroes are comfort zones, a lot of readers perceive this plot as their own little shrine. But that is me not being in tune with the mainstream population which is too distracted with billboards.
Because it is easier, because why protest, why not simply take what you are given - eat your GMO Monsanto's company hamburgers, eat your cancer giving Nestle products and think that The Hunger Games are the best franchise ever, like ever. This shit sells. It's genuinely bad but excellently targeted. You know, it evokes pride and loyalty and massacring children, freedom and scandal and Hollywood. It goes very well with all the Kardashian filth. As long as it sells, sells, sells. And marketing agencies know that people are united when they are jealous, when they want and they with those hamburgers want freedom.
Nobody is going to kill their Katniss in a goddam book! Take a look around you. And then the punch line for this book comes from the so called activism from the shopping mall. People who devour literature of this kind and think that everything is all right while in the same time, fuck, you are getting oozingly fat. Bottom line. This book is very shallow and MTV culture oriented, like a classical example of easy consummated pop-literature; I'm very surprised that it didn't come with some trash magazine subscription.
If it doesn't have savage brutality, prize money and prefix ''media coverage'' then it won't be appealing and educational because surely this is how children of 21st century survive this techno media world; through examples of true moral issues and realistic outcomes. Have another gulp of Coca-Cola along the way while you listen to dubstep shit.
It saddens me when a violent hillbillish book is so popular. What is there to truly identify yourself with. Except if your chicken soup for soul are basic emotions which come with buy 1 get 1 free. PLOT It's a potentially exciting but gruesome story, but most of the characters were rather flat, much of the plot was predictable it's not hugely original; in particular, it is VERY similar to the Japanese "Battle Royale" , and there were too many flaws in the plot.
I fail to understand its very high ratings. Post-apocalyptic America Panem is divided into a wealthy and technologically advanced Capitol and twelve subsidiary districts of oppressed people who exist in dire poverty, with inadequate food, housing, and health care and hardly any technology.
To reinforce the power of the Capitol by instilling fear in the population, once a year, two children from each region are selected by lots to fight to the death in a reality show.
If that were not bad enough, the whole thing is utterly corrupt in multiple ways, plus the public bet on the outcome, and sponsors can sway the results. Did I mention these are children? Some are as young as 12, though the narrator is A compulsory full-body wax on a teen seems rather pervy and who would want to bet on, let alone sponsor a child-killing tournament, even if it's by helping one of the contestants?
As the book keeps reminding readers, one person's survival is only possible by the death of all the others. CRUELTY TO CHILDREN I realise that horrendous things are done to children around the world every day extreme poverty, child soldiers, sexual assault, genital mutilation etc , but in none of those cases is the sole intention that all but one child dies, and nor is it organised by the government for a sick combination of sport, entertainment, punishment and profit.
Humans often lack compassion, but I was never convinced by Collins' world - especially the fact this outrage has continued for three generations it's the 74th games , apparently without the Capitol even needing to invoke gods or supernatural powers to justify their cruelty!
Could a barbaric annual tournament really be such a powerful incentive not to rise up in all that time? I don't think so. BIG ISSUES Nevertheless, it tackles some big themes that are particularly pertinent to teens: the nature of friendship; divided loyalties; the difference between love and friendship; who to trust; whether the ends justify the means; the need to repay favours; the danger of power, wealth and celebrity; the corrupting influence of reality TV; the need for independence, and whether you can trust a parent who abandons you.
It all feels rather laboured to me, but it might not if I were a teen, which only reinforces my puzzlement at the number of adults who have enjoyed it. I must be missing something. I predicted the main plot twist less than a quarter of the way in and the fact that Katniss is telling the story limits the possible outcomes , but the suspense was broken when it was made explicit way before the end.
There are some other twists between then and the final page, but by then I was rather annoyed with the whole thing. I suppose they had become inured to it, but on the other hand, that meant they knew the horror of it. I just didn't believe there was as little fear in them as there appeared to be - given that they are children.
It can only be a tiny part of the USA because each district specialises in only one thing coal mining, agriculture etc and has just one town square that can accommodate everyone 8, people in District 12 and yet it's a day's train journey from District 12 to the Capitol.
It doesn't seem like a very plausible settlement pattern in a post-disaster world, even given the totalitarian regime concentrating people in a few centres makes it easier to observe and perhaps control them, but it also creates more opportunities for opposition movements to develop. It is even possible that they could all survive. The second point is what makes LotF a better book, in my opinion. Of course, there are other, more obvious, parallels with extreme "reality" shows such as "Survivor" and "I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here", but the fundamental differences are not just that contestants in those shows do not fear for their lives, but that they are adults who have chosen to enter.
Any fans who read this will now hate me. I wanted to enjoy this book, and I read it all the way through, making notes as usual, but to no avail. Shelves: classic-young-adult , girls-rule , young-adult , utopia-dystopia , reviewed , chosen-girls. It is beautiful for the unflinching way it shows you, as a reader, your own willingness to disregard people who are different from you - how you are the Capitol audience. But, it is important as a story about girls.
I had not initially thought about articulating that point because it seemed so obvious to me, and I am bad at recognizing my own assumptions. Lately, though, I have seen so many people, both men and women, acting as though this remarkable book is a piece of fluff that I realized maybe what I love most about The Hunger Games is not as obvious as it seems.
To me, this series is important because it is a landmark departure from the traditional story about girls. Too often, stories objectify women. When I say stories objectify girls, I mean they talk about girls as though they are fleshlights that sometimes have handy dandy extra gadgets such as an all-purpose cleaning mechanism and food dispensing function.
Sidebar: if you are inclined to now google the word "fleshlight," I encourage you to consult the urban dictionary definition here before doing that, as the google results will probably be NSFW and also NSF those of you whose parents might check your browsing history.
Do parents know how to do that? Sorry for the sidebar, I am just intending to make an explicit point, and now I am feeling uncomfortable about what that explicit point might mean to the target audience of this book.
Girls, you are probably badass like Katniss, and you are definitely not a fleshlight. Back to my rant about typical objectification in storytelling: often the girls fleshlights have fancy outer designs because it makes the fleshlights happy to be fancy. Sometimes they have skeeeeeery castration functions , and other times they work as helpful databases for music or video games or whatever UR into.
A lot of times, I will hear people refer to this type of objectification as treating women like they are just a vagina, or a pair of boobs, but I think there is something to the stories that is less human and more sexbot machine than that complaint covers. So, in all of those links, I have tried to include books written by men and by women because I think that women think of ourselves this way almost as often as men think of us this way.
The link from The Ugly Truth , for example, shows both a man and a woman treating women like fleshlights. I have also included both books I love and books I hate because, ultimately, I do think girls adopt this story about themselves, and I also think we can pretty easily identify with a male protagonist and disregard female characters who look nothing like humans.
For example, The Sun Also Rises is one of my favorite books in the whole world, even though it does not contain any women who resonate with my experience of humans. And I don't think it's necessarily bad that I can enjoy stories where women are only fleshlights, as long as I can still be whoever I want to be without a positive role model.
I think it's good to enjoy stories and take what we can get from them, and so I don't regret that I love The Sun Also Rises. In seeing some male reactions to The Hunger Games , I am reminded that most men do not identify with female protagonists the way women have been trained to identify with male protagonists. This seems like a huge disadvantage for men to be in, to me, and if you are a man reading this review, I would ask you to check out your bookshelves. How many female authors are on your shelves?
How many of the books those authors wrote have no central male character? If you have a minute after that, check the shelves of a woman you are friends with and see how many of her books were written by men or have no central female character. Odds are the results will be pretty different. Katniss is strong and broken, and powerful in her brokenness. Masculinity does not have to mean emotional cowardice. Hopefully, we never think of our primary purpose in life, in the way so many stories think of it, as making penises erect.
Hopefully, we never think of ourselves as gadgets that are super fun for other people. Yes, it is also a poignant critique of reality TV and Western callousness about the catastrophes caused by industrialization in the developing world, but that, too, resonates with me in many ways because of its remarkably feminine voice. It absolutely makes sense to me that this book is not for everyone because of its violence, but I still think that it is objectively important because it shows a perspective that seems authentically feminine to me — that talks like a girl, not like a sexy, fancy gadget.
The Hunger Games is one that does, and it does so in way that is beautiful and important. I want to die as myself. I don't want them to change me in there.
Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not. I keep wishing I could think of a way to That I'm more than just a piece in their Games. You're the one who wasn't paying attention. Of course, I loved Peeta! How can "I don't know how to say it exactly. How can I not? He is perfect! But Katniss? She is so strong and bad-ass but she always misunderstands Peeta! It's so obvious that he loves her but she is in denial! She is so stupid!! And when she realizes his feelings, she just hurt him! Let's start from the beginning!
What is Hunger Games? Every year, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 were selected from each of the twelve districts as tributes, who train for a week and then are sent into an arena to fight to the death. Only one tribute can win the games. This competition is showed to television to be seen by all citizens.
So, Katniss' little sister, Prim, is selected for the games, but Katniss took her place to save her. I volunteer as tribute! He protected her but I will admit she protected him as well! She risked her life to get the medicine needed to heal his leg. But how can she not see that he is madly in love with her? I loved it when he told her about her singing for the music class, that's when Peeta realized he was in love with her when he saw that the birds were listening like they did for her father.
And right when your song ended, I knew - just like your mother - I was a goner," Peeta says. Very deep. He is her best friend! At the beginning, she said that she never saw him that way and now what? She is confusing me. Please, not love triangle again!! I liked Gale but no! He won the Hunger Games of his time. He is also Katniss' and Peeta's mentor. It seems at first that he doesn't like Katniss very much but at the Hunger Games he helped her more than he helped Peeta.
He always supported her in his way. She was the year-old female tribute from District I really liked that Katniss allied with Rue. They were amazing together. But Rue died. I understand only one can win our case two but I felt so sad when she died. Not only her though. A lot innocent kids die because of the Capitol.
It's not fair. So katniss and Peeta can be allies. But when all the other tributes died it was announced that the rule they said early has been canceled. I was so angry! They did it on purpose. She is so stupid. He didn't want to fight her and she thought that he could kill her.
But it was a trick. Peeta discovers that Katniss was mostly acting during the games about the feelings. He was so heartbroken! My baby! I haven't seen the movie yet! View all 48 comments.
Dec 24, Emily May rated it really liked it Shelves: young-adult , dystopia-utopia , It seems weird that I never reviewed The Hunger Games. I don't know why I didn't when it was a series that completely took over my life for a short while. But recently I've been thinking about posting something in this review space and after just watching the second film which I think was amazing and better than the first , now seems like as good a time as any to talk about why I love Katniss and nearly everything about this series.
I gave this book four stars back in and I'm going to leave that rating as it is because it's an indicator of my thoughts at the time though they slightly differ now - thoughts which were influenced by having just finished the fantastic, horrifying, brutal and unforgettable Battle Royale manga series. I don't think it was the best time for myself and Katniss to find one another when I had so much beautiful insanity to compare the book to, but it still managed to have such an effect on me that I instantly told every friend and family member to read it.
Coming back to this now after having spent the last couple of years being bombarded with dystopian YA, I appreciate what Collins has achieved a whole lot more. I appreciate the strength of Katniss as a heroine who commands our attention and holds our love whilst still being what some would consider unlikable; I appreciate the balance of beauty and horror that Collins delivers on every page, treating us constantly to both the darkest despair and rays of hope; and I also - amazingly - appreciate the love triangle.
Love triangles seem to have chased me and hunted me down with every YA read I picked up over the last two or three years - my dislike for romance instantly becoming doubled by the introduction of yet another boy with beautiful eyes.
But Katniss, Peeta and Gale worked for me. They convinced me, held my interest and made me cry. The love triangle worked because it's outcome wasn't obvious, because we all wondered and hoped and worried. Because, either way, I was always going to be half happy and half sad. Katniss still remains for me everything that a female protagonist should be. Or a female hero, at least. She fights for the ones she loves, she's brave and doesn't need to be saved.
But neither is she a one-dimensional smiling poster-version of a heroine. She falls, she fails, people get hurt because of her and she has to live with that. We love her and yet she's antisocial, awkward and moody. She loves other people with all her heart but she's not much of a team player.
In short: she's a complex portrait of a young woman that doesn't fall into any neatly defined boxes or categories. Now, perhaps, authors have since tried to recreate her. But she's still one of the first and best. I know another review of this book isn't needed. I know you've all probably read it anyway.
Or never will. But this isn't really for anyone else; it's a reminder to myself of why this book deserves its hype and why I need to remember to come back to it again and again between the new and hopefully amazing YA books I'll be reading in the future.
View all 29 comments. I've said to a few people that if I wasn't married, I'd have to marry this book. I feel pretty safe in saying that if this isn't still my favorite book of the year when next January rolls around, that I'll eat a hat.
As soon as I finished reading it, I turned around and read it a 2nd time, which I've never done before in my life. It's got some very meaty issues to chew on, not the least of which is reality TV taken to extremes. I will miss Katniss until I can read about her again. What more could you possibly ask for out of a book? It doesn't actually come out until October , but if you can get your hands on an ARC, definitely do!
I think that the violence in this will be easier for kids to take, since they probably won't see it quite as clearly as an adult will. None of it is particularly graphic, but it is definitely brutal. This is on the edge of too dark for me, which is my favorite kind of book. There aren't many writers who can push it right to the edge for me without going over Zusak comes to mind immediately , but Collins is definitely one of them.
OK, I'll stop gushing. I may have to re-write this review when I get some perspective. Still my definite favorite book of the year, but all the typos in the finished book were pretty disappointing.
I've had 2 teenaged boys at my library read this on my recommendation, and both of them came back asking me for more books like it really there isn't anything. May-June I'm reading this for the 4th time, with my younger son, who's finishing up 5th grade. Still as good as ever!! Can't wait for the movie!! I've seen the movie twice so far, and definitely liked it better the 2nd time, when it didn't have to try to be my favorite book. STILL as good as ever, and the odds will forever be in its favor.
View all 75 comments. Jul 18, Colleen Venable rated it really liked it Shelves: ya-fiction , books-that-made-me-cry. Fantastically Written? Ooooh yeah! Super Quick Read? Most definitely! Man, I wish someone on my friends list here has also read Battle Royale and this book! I ate it up, shouting into other rooms and offices that I was going to be shoving the book i Fantastically Written?
I ate it up, shouting into other rooms and offices that I was going to be shoving the book into their hands as soon as I was done, but as it went on desha vu was a little too common for me. I know there are major story types out there, ones that are repeated over and over again. Shakespeare retold different ways. The bible reinterpreted to 2,, varieties of tales FEED felt utterly original. If it's going to be about "the future" we don't know about, make it original.
In my mind dystopia novels survive on "idea" more than "excecution" and while the execution of this was beautiful, the idea was hardly new. In Battle Royal short explanation of BR plot: 40 students put on island forced to kill each other and winner is set for life and put on TV etc There are so many other similarities, from the ways the gamemakers manipulate, to the ways the media encourages, to one character having a fever and the other taking care of them with soup.
There are even "career" battle royal players. In BR you see the emotions before and after someone is killed, their last thoughts, the feeling of the person who killed. It's actually really beautiful the way it is done, and so believable that put in an arena teens WOULD turn into savages.
In The Hunger Games, yes the main characters were fantastic, and many of the lesser as well, but Foxface is only Foxface, and the Careers are never more than random 1-dimensional bad guys.
I am not saying it wasn't a GREAT read, I'm just saying it shouldn't shake the publishing earth the way I am pretty sure it is going to. I anticipate this is the next Twilight series people are going to gush over. In a few years we'll all be hosting Hunger Games final book parties. I'll be amongst the attendees I'm sure. Also in terms of female main characters, Katiniss may surpass Bella in me wanting to shake sense into a character.
Talk about a smart girl being utterly clueless! Yes, it was great, but eh, maybe I'm just bitter because I think BR is the better book of the two and while Hunger Games will get tons of praise and likely a rather deserved award or two, BR will continue to be banned in many libraries. Amazing what subtracting guns can do to a story. Suddenly it doesn't feel as violent, but rather is more reminiscent of stories we heard growing up.
The number of swords and arrow deaths in traditional fairytales is nothing to freak out about, but if bullets are flying, it will give "too many ideas" to teens and therefore must be dubbed an adult book. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't read BR just a few months back this exeedingly long review would have been just as long only instead of a rant it would have just been one long squeeeeeal of delight over how much I loved the book. Original Comment: Peer pressure, peer pressure, peer pressure.
Geez guys! Alright, alright I'll read it! Clearly Gregor was merely the prelude. As an author we were accustomed to your fun adventures involving a boy, his sister, and a world beneath our world. But reading it gave me a horribly familiar feeling.
There is a certain strain of book that can hypnotize you into believing that you are in another time and place roughly 2. And The Hunger Games? Well as I walked down the street I was under the disctinc impression that there were hidden cameras everywhere, charting my progress home. Collins has written a book that is exciting, poignant, thoughtful, and breathtaking by turns.
It ascends to the highest forms of the science fiction genre and will create all new fans for the writer. One of the best books of the year. Ever since her father died the girl has spent her time saving her mother and little sister Prim from starvation by hunting on forbidden land. But worst of all is reaping day. Once a year the government chooses two children from each of the twelve districts to compete against one another in a live and televised reality show.
Twenty-four kids and teens enter, and only one survives. Why not make it as if Peeta and Katniss were in love with one another? But in a game where only one person can live, Katniss will have to use all her brains, wits, and instincts to determine who to trust and how to outwit the game's creators. So sure, there are parts of this plot that have been done before.
You could say it's The Game meets Spartacus with some Survivor thrown in for spice. Some of the greatest works of literature out there, regardless of the readerships' age, comes about when an author takes overdone or familiar themes and then makes them entirely new through the brilliance of their own writing.
Similarly, Collins takes ideas that have certainly seen the light of day before and concocts an amazingly addictive text.
Your story often rests on the shoulders of the protagonist. Is this a believable character? Do you root for him or her? Katniss, on the other hand, is so good in so many ways. She sacrifices herself for her sister. She tries to save people in the game. Most remarkable to me was the fact that Katniss could walk around, oblivious to romance, and not bug me.
You just want to bonk the ladies upside the head with a brick or something. The different here is maybe the fact that since Katniss knows that Peeta has to play a part, she uses that excuse however unconsciously to justify his seeming affection for her. Thems smart writing.
And did I mention the dialogue at all? The humor? The words pop off the page. No faux slang here, or casual references to extinct dolphins. People love to characterize books by gender. It stars a boy? Boy book. A girl? Girl book. Now take a long lengthy look at the first book in the Hunger Games Trilogy. It stars a girl This is not a book that quietly slots into our preconceived stereotypes.
And you know what happens to books that span genders? They sell very well indeed. That is, if you can get both boys and girls to read them. The age range? Well, for most of this story I would have said ten and up. There are definite horror elements to it as well, so with that in mind I am upping my recommendation to 12 and up. You'll see why. It occurs to me that there has never been a quintessential futuristic gladiator book for kids.
That is undoubtedly the roughest term you can give this book. Yet as I was taking a train to Long Island I found myself tearing up over significant parts of this story. You think of futuristic arena tales and your mind instantly sinks to the lowest common denominator. What Collins has done here is set up a series that will sink its teeth into readers. The future of this book will go one of two ways. Either it will remain an unappreciated cult classic for years to come or it will be fully appreciated right from the start and lauded.
My money lies with the latter. A contender in its own right. Ages 12 and up. View all 32 comments. Jun 12, jessica rated it it was amazing Shelves: favourites. Aug 27, NickReads rated it really liked it. The book that got me into reading. Nov 13, Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it Shelves: fiction , 21th-century , united-states , young-adult , science , literature , fantasy. It is written in the voice of year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in the future, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in North America.
The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, exercises political control over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games is an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12—18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle to the death. Oct 01, Elle ellexamines rated it it was amazing Shelves: authors-of-color , x-series , elle-recs-list , zreads , favorite-characters , zfavs , zfaves , 5-star , sff-scifi-dystopias. The love triangle being pointless is quite literally the point ; Gale and Peeta are meant to represent the opposite sides of war something a certain plot point in book three really drives home.
Katniss is frankly never romantically interested in either for almost all of books one and two; she grows to care about Peeta in the general sense, not just the romantic sense. The eventual romance works for Katniss because it is safe for her. I more think this series is interesting in how it talks about the nature of power and the nature of uprising. The uprising, as a whole, is an upswelling of the people, a realization that there is strength in numbers.
Even during war, the individual lives of characters like Joanna and Haymitch and Finnick matter. They matter to the narrative, and thus they matter to us too. Her journey is not in becoming a Nice Person but in self-actualization. That is not a journey female characters are ever ever ever allowed to take and is arguably still something new. I almost want to case study this. It's crazy that the first big ya dystopia is the best ya dystopia and one of the best series of all time, but this one is truly a classic and remains so incredible.
Thank you to Katniss Everdeen for being one of the most interesting characters ever written and to this book for having such a dynamic story. It's relevant to our world.
The parallels to our own society are so amazingly drawn, and the worldbuilding so good, that I'm not surprised this book was the one that broke through. Dramatic tension. Tell me you weren't on the edge of your seat every moment of this book.
You're lying. Katniss' struggle to survive on her own is compelling and twisty. Every moment is filled with fear and tension. The characters are amazing. Katniss Everdeen is one of the best developed, most intriguing protagonists ever written. She's badass and she's selfish and she takes no shit.
In the end, I think that's what made this series so fantastic and popular. View all 21 comments. Jul 15, Will Byrnes rated it really liked it Shelves: fiction , young-adult , fantasy. What was once North America has been reduced, by what we are not told. A decadent Capitol rules over 12 subservient, worker districts. Katliss is a year-old who lives with her depression-incapacitated mother and her year-old sister, Prim, whom she loves more than anything.
She lives in the coal-producing District 12, a sooty place in the former Appala What was once North America has been reduced, by what we are not told.
She lives in the coal-producing District 12, a sooty place in the former Appalachia where life expectancy is as bleak as the food ration is small. Suzanne Collins - from fictiondb. Contestants, or tributes, in the very Rome-centric nomenclature of the book, are selected by lottery, but one can get food for increasing the number of entries one is willing to submit.
This is not necessarily a lottery you would want to win, as the Hunger Games contest is a gladiatorial battle to the death. Joining an ancient form of barbarity with a more modern version, the contest is seen by the nation on television, gussied up with all the pomp and circumstance of the World Cup, Superbowl and World Series combined, with the degrading intrusiveness of reality television.
Primrose Everdeen gets the bad news - from Jabberjays. They are transported to the Capitol, dressed up, interviewed on TV, offered training in several forms of combat and sent out there to do or die. The rest is their ordeal, which includes having to succeed not only with physical skills such as strength and agility. In addition to the need for cunning in figuring out how to best their competitors, they have to figure out how to please the television audience, among which are sponsors who might send them much needed goods during the game.
Katliss is caught not only in a brutal contest with the other tributes, but in a confusing battle with her own adolescent emotions. What are her feelings, really, for her male counterpart from District 12, Peeta, and for her hunky bff Gale back home team Gale vs team Peeta anyone?
How can she express her rage at the operators of this horror for their inhumanity? I quite enjoyed reading the book, hated putting it down. Collins offers characters one can root for, with enough inner conflict and complexity to matter, well some of them, without it being overbearing, or slowing down the story. Ok, I liked the book. But I had a niggling concern early on. When I began reading, I wondered if there might be a political agenda at play.
However, given the political climate of the twenty-teens, in which cynical forces of the right seek at every opportunity to portray government of any sort as the personification of evil, one must wonder if the author subscribed to the notion.
I confess to not having read her prior work, so lack a basis there, and the interviews with Collins I read offer no insight. So, I am not saying that this is so, just that the portrayal made me wonder. I posted a review of Catching Fire in , and while I did read Mockingjay I never got around to reviewing it.
While I no longer feel a concern that Collins was consciously attempting to impart a stealth right-wing perspective, I still had a feeling that there was something else going on here.
Thankfully, GR friend Kyra offered a link to an article in The Guardian that articulated very clearly what my innards were only able to communicate with vague visceral discomfort. Here is the link. I suggest you check it out for yourselves. I go into this a bit in my review of Catching Fire. Nov 13, Morgan F rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: everyone. Shelves: preston-public-library , own , medium-sized , young-adult , s , adrenaline , completed-series , read , favorites , its-a-girl.
View all 40 comments. Mar 26, Nilesh Kashyap rated it it was ok Shelves: dystopian. This is how it went: I started it and was immediately sucked into the book but then around midway I started losing interest. I fell asleep and had horrible dream credit to graphic violence. Next morning I finished it owning to its fast pace.
This book is special: This is my first dystopian novel. I was very much excited about it since it was my introduction to a new genre. I would like to thank this book for such amazing description of dystopian world. The book: This is a kind of book which probably everyone has read including their dogs, cats and birds too!
The world building part is brilliant. It is fast paced with simplistic writing. These are all good things. The best part kids are starting to read the books. Suzanne Collins created the opportunity golden ones and one by one she destroyed it. But still most of the people are enthralled by the book as it eventually came out. Using the first person perspective and thus losing the chance to give depth to any character This story has been told through the eyes of Katniss Everdeen, she just doesn't give a damn about anyone else except her family so naturally the other characters are too shallow and one dimensional.
All I knew about Peeta was that he liked Katniss from age of five, saved her twice and is now in love with Katniss, rest is mystery. About Katniss , she does a lot of thing infact she does everything in the book but never has a second thought about them, never reflect over what she has done, eventually no attachment with the character. People tend to like Rue, Peeta, Cinna because these are few characters that spent time with Katniss, but again no character has depth.
One more outcome that I feel from other reviews is that Katniss is definitely heroine of the story but why make other 10 kids villain. While Cato and Clove make their kill they become monster but when Katniss makes her kill, it has to be justified as revenge for killing Rue and pity killing of Cato.
Missed opportunities This could have been much more interesting novel. Where did it all go wrong? Killing other human has effect on the killer, until and unless killer is sociopath, moreover here the killers are kids. Instead of giving insight to their mind the story flatly moves ahead with killing and ending the games. No further thoughts beyond that.
I will read it someday, probably before second installment of the movie. As I watched the movie it seemed that novel was written with movie in mind. Few minor changes, like in the end President Snow shown thinking representing its start of story unlike novel which ends.
Some scenes are breath taking, too much violence. Acting by Jennifer Lawrence is good she turned out better than Katniss in the book. The kind of reviews and comments I have seen makes me think this book is being followed like religion and my review will sound like blasphemy to them. View all 73 comments. Aug 30, Lyndsey rated it it was amazing Shelves: reviewedstars , favorites , reviewed , i-recommend. Oh no. You've awakened the beast.
It's Jackniss!! So maybe Matthew Fox from Lost isn't exactly the person you had in mind when you thought about who they might cast as Katniss in The Hunger Games, but I was inspired to create that after I saw this site called Jackimals. You might want to wait to visit it, though, because it can suck you in like an unexplained time warp flash. I was also inspired to create the Jackniss after I read a discussion that deeply disturbed me.
Somewhere, possibly on Oh no. Somewhere, possibly on Goodreads, I read that someone thought the Lost writers should get involved in writing the Hunger Games script. Forget the genius Suzanne Collins, let's give it to the guys who left the greatest mystery in all of TV history completely unexplained.
Don't get me wrong. I love Lost and appreciate it greatly, but they really explained nothing in terms of the plot. But don't even get me started on that - Circuits overloading. It cannot do without. That's obviously not going to happen since Suzanne has already written the script, but just play along for a second.
Here's how I think it would go Katniss is being chased by one of the mutts who suddenly turns into the smoke monster, which gobbles her up in flashes of lightning and the sound of mechanical teeth grinding while playing a flashback of her life in the District.
It quickly chokes her back up realizing she's a candidate to replace Jacob but she's in such shock from the experience that she lays down and dies, with a stunning close-up of her eye closing. Roll credits. Now, if you haven't read The Hunger Games yet , I won't even try to justify why you should. You just should. It is a hard read, but more importantly, it is a MUST read. View all 40 comments. I am a big fan of speculative fiction and in my literary travels I have encountered a myriad of dystopias, anti-utopias and places and societies that make one want to scream and Despite being published back in , I have ye I am a big fan of speculative fiction and in my literary travels I have encountered a myriad of dystopias, anti-utopias and places and societies that make one want to scream and The very mention of either of those terms invokes images of Nazis and Soviet gulags in my mind.
Yet Orwell's creation is in many ways even more insidious than these real-world bogeymen. I first read this book when I was 12 years old in 7th grade as a Anyway, I decided to re-read this book recently as an adult in the hopes that I would be able to gain a great appreciation for this classic. Well, the book did more than that.
From the very first sentence, "It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen" to the unforgettable final sentence which I will not give away here , this story sucked me in, beat the living shit out of me and through me out the other side a hollow, wasted wreck. I know, it doesn't sound very cheery, but it is a life-changing experience. I have always thought that one of the best and most important qualities of science fiction is that it frees the author to take the controversial, politically charged issues and trends of the day and create a possible future based on exaggerations of such trends and in so doing present a compelling and critical argument for change.
Well NO ONE has ever done a better job than better Orwell in showing the possible nightmare and thus potential danger of a society without basic civil liberties and a government with complete and unchallenged control. View all 47 comments. The novel is set in Airstrip One, formerly Great Britain, a province of the superstate Oceania, whose residents are victims of perpetual war, omnipresent government surveillance and public manipulation. Oceania's political ideology, euphemistically named English Socialism is enforced by the privileged, elite Inner Party.
Via the "Thought Police", the Inner Party persecutes individualism and independent thinking, which are regarded as "thoughtcrimes". View all 10 comments. Cynical, scathing, and not without its flaws, this is still a stark, haunting glimpse at what could be.
Freedom is slavery. The closing lines still come to me sometimes and remind me of depths that I can only imagine. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself.
The scene that I most often think is when Winston and Julia are captured. Winston Smith cautiously and surreptitiously discovers the Brotherhood led by Goldstein and then learns all too well about O'Brien's duplicitous doublethink. More than just a cautionary political tale, Orwell has described an ideological abyss into which we must not gaze; a glimpse at authoritarianism power plays to which the Nazis and Soviets never descended.
While we can appreciate the reminder to avoid authoritarianism and his prophetic vision, the idea that truth can be arranged through media is perhaps the most relevant for us today. In the past I have somewhat overlooked Julia as a character and thought that Orwell had neglected to form a strong female character, however I now think that she is every bit as strong as Winston and plays a central role in. Whereas Winston hates the party and wants to overturn it, Julia is much more practical and realistic in her rebellion.
Winston thinks about the nature of the totalitarianism in abstract ways, Julia uses the terms of doublethink against the party and makes her frank sexuality a systematic rejection of party principle. Winston embodies the use of media as propaganda and to disseminate inaccurate statements that prop up the party.
Every bit as timeless and relevant as it has ever been. View all 41 comments. Shelves: 4-star-reads , sci-fi. In some twisted form, everything reflects the truth of reality.
Of course there are exaggerations, though nothing is far from plausibility. We are controlled by our governments, and often in ways we are not consciously aware of. Advertisements, marketing campaigns and political events are all designed for us to elicit a certain response and think in a desired way. Cultural brainwashing becomes the chief goal. Assimilation into a passionless and completely ignorant mind-set becomes the most effective means of keeping the population down.
Subjugation becomes normality. The streets are claustrophobic and the people the workers can escape nothing. Every action, every word spoken, is recorded.
The police are ready to grab anyone who steps remotely out of line. If language can be broken down into the absolute basics, the simplest and ordinary units, then people can only express themselves on a very minor level. They cannot think beyond their daily tasks because there are no words that connote dreams and fantasy. Step out of line and you are killed, though not before being dragged to room for torture and even stronger methods of thought control.
As such through the plot the book depicts a stark transformation, a transformation of man who was once willing to fight and to think but falls into one of the ingenious traps big brother sets for him to expose his criminality. He shows us that we are not so far from big brother as we may think.
View all 20 comments. Social media is a cage full of starved rats and all of us have our heads stuck in there now, like it or not. View all 8 comments. I know this is a well loved classic and I definitely enjoyed some parts View all 12 comments. Checklisting how much has become real. Permanent warmongering with, especially the US, invading or supporting war parties. This is combined with Discrediting even not radical, just progressive, alternative political parties, NGOs, and citizen movements that are too defiant.
Good old Divide and rule style. Just swallow it, democracy is dead, but at least progressive, critical voices are just ignored and not killed. Thanks to the Military industrial complex public private partnershipping the last drop out of dysfunctional, intentionally destroyed distributional justice and eco social market economy. A great problem that emerges from the corporations controlling all democratic European and the US governments, probably the Asian, South American ones, Australia, etc.
Or call me a leftist conspiracist and trust politicians and journalists, far more easygoing. I should really consider to stop committing thoughtcrimes. Similar stuff This is added to my review of Brave new world too. Subjectively, I do find it much more attractive that we wealthy Westerners live in friendly Brave new worlds with fringe pseudo democracy and not in Orwellian or Capekian horror visions as many other poor people around the world do.
View all 28 comments. Nov 09, Leo. Is Orwell turning in his grave? Does his epitaph read. Don't say I never told you so! Which pigeon hole? What label? What career? When a car driver loses control of the vehicle and strays from the path that was ahead, the car careers off the road. One might crash. One is no longer on the journey one originally set out on. One is lost. Off the beaten track. So, when one is a child and asked what career one wants, esoterically it means how can one be swayed or crashed and stopped from what one may want to be when one grows up.
The only answer a child should give to their teacher indoctrinater is These authorities with all the powers? Deciding what we say, or do, or go, from their Ivory Towers A deviant neighbour moves in next door, behaviour abnormal, and hoarding trash Puts his waste in his shed, a festering, mouldy stash Attracting rats, mice, flies and vermin of all kinds Breaking other residents resolve, distorting their minds For when the community complain about it, every day, week in week out, all the time These authorities point the finger at us, accuse us of a Bloody Hate Crime!
Rationale has been replaced, with the word Hate As the lines blur, in this New World Order, is it too late? To change this world? To take a stance? Maybe our last Chance! This world is going to Hell in a Shitstorm! If we don't restore the Earth's Balance. Crawling all over society Police or Po-Lice? These parasites, are only there to Scare To enforce Order, in the chaos they Create On behest of the Magicians behind the curtains, the One's that preach Hate.
In this Cube, this false construct, this Square. So look around, see the whole, and Beware! I am full aware of what is going on in this pursuit for a New World Order, an Old World Order, whereby the void between the few and the majority broadens.
I am so frustrated how the Sheeple just seem to lap it up. A cell phone. A smart cell phone that is all singing and dancing It is called a Cell phone for a reason. Like the Net and the Web. Soon all appliances and mob devices will be Smart. If one does not own one then when 5G is rolled out and the Smart Grid comes into being, one will be left behind.
Soon all money paid in wages or commerce will be digital and people will not survive in the New Virtual World unless one is chipped or connected to the 5G network.
Understand that money is phony. It is paper or a figure on a PC screen. Soon to be a digital concept, like in the film In Time. Money used to be made of copper, silver and gold. This is when coins actually held value, worth it's weight in gold actually meant something.
Then the Templars invented the Banking system, now they are called Freemasons a Fiat pyramid system that is illegal yet, no person seems to care.
That is the way it is. Only because of ignorance. Acquiescence, Taxation is a fraud. It is theft. Time to wake up before it is too late. And the female freemasonic Eastern Star. Maybe I have said too much but, I don't care anymore. That is today's Rant.
Everybody should read and also watch the film. I've put off writing a review for because it's simply too daunting to do so. I liked even better after a second reading bumping it up from a 4 star to a 5 star because I think that, given the complexity of the future created by Orwell, multiple readings may be needed to take it all in. I thought it was genius the first time and appreciated that genius even more the second time.
Orwell had a daunting task: creating a future nearly half a century away from the time period in which he w I've put off writing a review for because it's simply too daunting to do so. Orwell had a daunting task: creating a future nearly half a century away from the time period in which he was writing.
This future had to be its own complex, independent society, but it also had to be the natural end result of the totalitarianism Orwell witnessed in the communist and socialist regimes of World War II. That's part of the horror of this future is a recognizable one, even in the 21st century. It's easy to see how those in control can, through manipulation and propaganda, maintain that control simply for the sake of sating their own power hunger.
It's easy to say "no one could ever tell me what to think or what to do," but the Party's use of Big Brother, the Thought Police, the Two-Minute Hate, and Doublethink make it easy to see how a person's ability to think independently and discern fiction from reality can be eroded when there is no touchstone to fact.
Revising and rewriting the past to make certain that Big Brother and the Party are always correct has effectively eliminated historical accuracy. How can one think and reason in a society where everything is a fabrication? Another facet of that I find fascinating is the relationship between Winston and Julia. Winston claims Julia is a "rebel from the waist down," engaging in promiscuity and hedonistic indulgences forbidden by the Party.
She doesn't care about social injustice or defining "reality"; she only longs for what will make her feel good in the moment and only rebels far enough to get what she wants.
By comparison, Winston is an intellectual rebel, constantly worrying over the issues of truth and freedom and the real, unvarnished past, but limited in how far he's willing to push the boundaries until he meets Julia.
Together, they make a complete rebellion--physical and mental, but apart they find themselves impotent to stand up to the Party. Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder The totalitarian regimes of Hitler, Mussolini and Imperial Japan were defeated. Stalin was going strong. Franco was undisturbed. However, the war was not quite over: the victors, Russia on one side, the USA on the other, were now superpowers staring stonily at each other, their hands loaded with a new and deadly Europe was only starting to recover from the slaughter of World War II.
However, the war was not quite over: the victors, Russia on one side, the USA on the other, were now superpowers staring stonily at each other, their hands loaded with a new and deadly arsenal. Both sections are stupefying. Yet, the last third of the book is probably one of the worst nightmares in literature: a prolonged torture and brainwashing session that plunges into utter insanity.
At any rate, this novel has become one of the canonical landmarks of political dystopia. The days of Hitler and Stalin are long gone now.
View all 32 comments. I wanted to understand the origin of the expression "Big Brother" associated with our modern world, and I immersed myself in by George Orwell. This novel of anticipation, published in , is striking! We follow with interest the destinies of Winston and Julia in this universe which is reminiscent of ours or what it could become. Of course, it is a fable, but the images strike and remain used for a long time. After reading this cult novel, we look at certain realities differently.
It is a I wanted to understand the origin of the expression "Big Brother" associated with our modern world, and I immersed myself in by George Orwell. It is a detour that is worth it, a must.
Why did I wait so long to read it? This book! This was a reread - the last time I read this was over 20 years ago and I wanted to see if the 5 star rating and its standing in one of my top 3 favorite books held up - and it most certainly does. If this book was written today in the midst of the slew of dystopian novels that come out, it may not have stood out.
But, this book was way ahead of its time. Written in a post WWII era where the fears of dictatorships and brutal tyranny were fresh in the minds of the people, this book plays off that fear and adds a dark vision of a potential future.
This is where the genius of Orwell comes in. The book is mainly the manifesto of the Party that the main character is seeking to rebell against. But, the ideology and descriptions of this dystopian world are not presented in a boring way - they are fascinating. The fact that Orwell created this world and laid out not only a terrifying political environment, but the rules for the new language they were creating, is beyond amazing.
Finally, some of the things he describes sound all too possible in our current world. The controversial elections this week in the US only added to the intensity of this book.
Read this! Especially if you are a fan of modern dystopia, you must read the fore fathers - and Brave New World. And, remember - Big Brother is watching! View all 36 comments. Goodness gracious this was very unsettling. I'm already a pretty paranoid person, so the idea of Big Brother was both very intriguing but also extremely frightening.
I really enjoyed reading this, but there were moments when I wasn't invested in the story and wanted to take a break from it, mostly in the last half of the book. View all 5 comments. It took me way longer than expected to finish it, and once I managed, said friend requested in all caps a text-messag i'm not making any point in particular It took me way longer than expected to finish it, and once I managed, said friend requested in all caps a text-message review.
Here is that unaltered review for your perusal. In conclusion, yes, I am the type of nightmare-person who responds to texts by breaking up sentiments into dozens of messages. Bottom line: This was good but I wish it had been one or two political opinion papers instead! Sorry again! View all 9 comments. What can I possibly say about this amazing novel, by George Orwell, that hasn't been already said by many who have read the book for over half a century.
When it is said that the book is 'haunting', 'nightmarish', and 'startling' any reader would have to agree! This well known novel grips the reader from the beginning and does not even let go of the grip at the finished reading. A classic you won't want to miss if you haven't taken the time to read it yet. I actually listened to this novel What can I possibly say about this amazing novel, by George Orwell, that hasn't been already said by many who have read the book for over half a century.
I actually listened to this novel on audio and Simon Prebble was the 'perfect' narrator. Praise the lord and pass the amunition, I am finished with this beast of a book. My brain feels like sludge, I just want to crawl into a hole and forget all that was engrained into my poor head. Why, oh why did I have the noble idea to read such a monster? I believe, like some of you that this might have been better had I read it in a class or with a group. Alone it was fingernails to chalkboard miserable.
After reading this, it just makes you feel hopeles Praise the lord and pass the amunition, I am finished with this beast of a book. After reading this, it just makes you feel hopeless. Hallelujah, it's over. Never again, Orwell Never again! Sidenote: I did a little experiment on facebook about this book I wrote in my status that I was reading '', anybody have any opinions? Almost everyone of the commenters wrote how much they enjoyed this book and how it was one of their favorite books ever.
While I am sure that maybe 1 of them was being truthful, I have to doubt atleast half of them Now I ask, Why do people lie about certain books? Do they think it makes them look smarter? I just don't get it, if you don't like something you don't like it. It's not neccessary to like it for classic book sake. This might not be making sense to some of you But, I am sure all of you have been in a bookstore or talking with a co-worker, etc. You know this person and it's hard to see them reading period, much less what they are talking about.
I guess my point is, don't be a fake book talker. Like it, Yay. Don't like it, Yay. Rant over. View all 49 comments. Winston is a very complex, sane person in a world full of insanity and utter destitution. Julia is on par with Winston, but other than the charming and mysterious O'Brien, no other character is developed enough to be anything but a filler, someone to push the plot along.
In any other novel this would be a bad thing, but in this world it is perfect, and it's exactly what those people are in any case. It is so superbly written I cannot fault it at all concerning that. At the beginning I was drawn in so far that I was almost in love.
It was a five-star book up until Julia turned up: whilst I completely understand her character and her paradoxical nature being so openly physically against Big Brother and yet intelligence-wise and mentally not , I did not like her even remotely, but I understood her character fully. The other thing that put me off was the huge info-dump. Whilst I completely understood that this was an intentional info-drop and it really could not have been conveyed to either the reader or the character in any other way, it really made the whole thing very disjointed.
Again, it felt hugely intentional but I still did not enjoy it. Overall, there's really nothing I can fault except my own opinions.
Good writing is Fact: punctuation in the correct places, the right use of words, syntax and all that; building up worlds and characters to a certain degree of solidness. Enjoyment of writing is Opinion: characters being likeable, understandable; worlds being full or non-descript. This was a perfect book that I simply had a few too many low opinions of to be delighted by it completely. I reread this recently, knowing my mind from a few years ago is different from my mind now.
But it was surprisingly just as scary! Maybe even more so, if that is possible!! I wonder if there is someone who has read and has not felt angry and helpless. It is a good book. It is so good that it made my want to throw away my Kindle. Martin's series. I also wonder if this world Orwell d I reread this recently, knowing my mind from a few years ago is different from my mind now. I also wonder if this world Orwell describes is that far from ours.
Big Brother may have become a stupid internet meme and an even stupider TV show if there are fans here sorrynotsorry , but that somehow makes it even more frightening. In the oppression is very in your face, but in reality it is hidden through nice words and fancy laws.
At the end of the day, it really makes you ask yourself if safety and security are really what you want. And if they are worth the price The colour of this book is grey, relentless grey: of skin, sky, food, floor, walls, mind, life itself. Added piquancy comes from general decay, drudgery, exploitation, chronic sickness, and malaise.
There is also sex and non-sexual bondage, domination, and torture. On the other hand, I gather Fifty Shades lacks page after page of heavy-handed political theory, so on that criterion, it might be ahead of Have We Reached ? On the other hand, Winston is uncritical - enthusiastic even - about her promiscuity.
And in each case, it's a denial of the dogma that this is the original sin. The patent nonsense that people believe and share, without ever engaging the weakest of critical faculties is staggering. Most of those are trivial compared with the lies of Big Brother, but they show how easy it is to believe what everyone else believes, regardless of ample evidence to the contrary. Scary stuff. He campaigned in the style of an autocratic, narcissistic demagogue.
He had a long track record of flagrantly denying obvious, provable truths, even on trivial matters. The day after numerous photos and other measures showed unimpressive attendance at his inauguration, rather than blame poor weather or practical and financial difficulties of travel, Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary flat-out denied realistic estimates, refused to take questions, and threatened to crack down on the press. The resulting furore led to Kellyanne Conway, a Trump Strategist, defended him, saying he had merely presented "Alternative Facts".
It was their final, most essential command… And yet he was in the right! They were wrong and he was right. The obvious, the silly, and the true had got to be defended. Truisms are true, hold on to that!
The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth's centre. With the feeling that he was speaking to O'Brien, and also that he was setting forth an important axiom, he wrote Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. It relates to dreams, premonitions, hallucinations, and in sanity.
Confusion from deprivation and torture is one thing, but there are possible magical-realist aspects. A country landscape is also familiar from a dream, and he has a muddled dream about the coral paperweight, his mother and a Jewish woman.
Conditions in Airstrip One are dire, with food and basic services in very limited supply, but sanity is scarcest of all. Again and again, brief, apparently trivial things turn out to be significant. This is really an extreme form of linguistic determinism aka Sapir-Whorf hypothesis : the idea that the structure of a language can affect the cognition of those who use it.
However, it's worth noting that the appendix, written after the main story, is in conventional English. Feelings — and Troublesome Questions This is a grey, cold book. Even the lust and passion it contains is chilling. Would you really? If you tell all, but secretly love, are you loyal? If you kept the small rules, you could break the big ones. What about emotional pain?
The torture was real. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. OLD Review from The year may be long passed, but this book is more pertinent than ever: big brother is watching us, history is rewritten though that has always been true and free speech is constrained albeit often under the misused guise of political correctness. It's a shame that the humorous TV programme "Room " and reality TV franchise "Big Brother" have distracted people from the seriousness of Orwell's message.
Apr 09, Dr. Throwback Review This novel falls under the category of dystopian science fiction. This story takes place in the future, this book was released in , where the world is facing a war. The prose in this book is simply spectacular that this would have been a best-seller even if Orwell would have released it as a non-fictional book by removing all the fictional elements from it. This novel has so many embedded themes in it.
The politics, nationalism, surveillance which Orwell is ment Throwback Review This novel falls under the category of dystopian science fiction. The politics, nationalism, surveillance which Orwell is mentioning are all deeply debatable topics. This is an absolute must-read book for everyone. Who controls the present controls the past.
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