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Old 03-28-2012, 08:52 PM   #1
Jerichi
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Porygon-Z The Hunger Games

A fantastic trio of books written by Suzanne Collins, now best-selling author. The first of the three books was recently released in film form, titled the same as the first book and the series itself, The Hunger Games. A quick overview from Wikipedia:

Quote:
The Hunger Games trilogy takes place in an unidentified future time period after the destruction of the current nations of North America, in a nation known as "Panem". Panem consists of a rich Capitol, located in what used to be Rocky Mountains, and twelve (formerly thirteen) surrounding, poorer districts which are under the hegemony of the Capitol. As punishment for a previous rebellion against the Capitol wherein twelve of the districts were defeated and the thirteenth destroyed, every year one boy and one girl from each of the remaining twelve districts, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, are selected by lottery and forced to participate in the "Hunger Games". The Games are a televised event where the participants, called "tributes", must fight to the death in a dangerous outdoor arena until only one remains. The winning tribute and his/her corresponding district is then rewarded handsomely with food and plenty, seeing as the lower districts are starving.
And the main characters of all 3 books:
Spoiler: show

Quote:
Katniss Everdeen is the 16-year-old protagonist. She lives in a region of District 12 known as the Seam, which is the poorest area of the district. She lives with her mother and sister, Primrose, whom she calls simply "Prim". Her father died before the beginning of the story in a mining accident. She is described as having dark hair, olive skin, and gray eyes. She is best friends with Gale Hawthorne. She makes a living by illegally hunting with Gale in the forest borders of her district and selling her catch in the Hob, District 12's black market. She volunteers to be a tribute in the Games in order to save her sister, Primrose Everdeen, who was originally chosen. She must enter the Games along with Peeta Mellark and have the mentorship of Haymitch Abernathy. Katniss has mixed feelings for both Peeta and Gale.

Peeta Mellark is 16 years old as well, and was born in the richer part of the district to a baker. He has wavy blonde hair and blue eyes, a physical indicator of the wealthier people who were born in town, and is described as being very strong. He is the chosen male tribute to represent District 12. He saves Katniss's life multiple times, and has had a crush on her since he first saw her at age 5 at school but never had the courage to reveal it until the Games.

Haymitch Abernathy is the mentor of Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen, and is the tribute winner of the 50th Hunger Games. Haunted by the nightmares of the Games he was in, he is rarely sober throughout the book. At first he does not bother to protect Peeta and Katniss from the doom awaiting them in the Games, but after they prove their strength he guides them through the Games.

Gale Hawthorne is 18 in the first book of the trilogy, and is Katniss's best friend. They've met up in the woods for years prior to the beginning of the novel and since then became best friends and hunting partners. Gale's appearance is similar to Katniss's, as is true of most people who live in their area. Gale became head of the Hawthorne family after his father was killed along with Katniss's father in the same mine explosion. Katniss mentions that Gale is, "the only person with whom I can be myself."


Some comparisons have been drawn between this book and the Battle Royale series, suggesting that it might have been heavily inspired or plain old ripped off by this series. Take that as you will, but I think that this series holds its own enough to be worth checking out.

In any case, I just wrote up a lengthy tumblr post comparing things I liked from the book and the movie for those of you who haven't seen or read one or the other. Or if you're interested. [/shameless plug]

May the odds ever be in your favor!
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Old 03-28-2012, 08:55 PM   #2
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I found the first book very meh, and didn't continue the rest of the series. I will inevitably get dragged to see the movie with my shameless fanboy/fangirl friends, however.
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Old 03-28-2012, 09:16 PM   #3
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The book, for all its disadvantages, is immensely readable by people who don't usually read. People like teenagers, young boys, young girls, and even older people are being sucked into the book as easily as you or I (depending on your tastes, of course) might get sucked into Pride and Prejudice or Ender's Game (and co.).

My sister spent all of Saturday just riveted on a book, which is something I've never seen her do before with anything. Not even Sherlock Holmes. She even refuses to read books that aren't "suitable" for her because they're "too difficult", but she took to the dystopian concepts like a gorilla to water. (Oh, sorry, my bad habit of intentionally mangling idioms is showing again.) While I did enjoy it, I'm just glad to see a movie on a book I read because it's nice to feel validated like that. Or in the case of Eragon/Harry Potter VI, justified in your horror at the unspeakable story-surgery being performed on essential plot details.
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Old 03-28-2012, 10:50 PM   #4
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I'm 80 pages into the first book as of acquiring it in the early afternoon and will probably finish by tomorrow evening. I just got back from seeing it a second time with another friend.

I'm already seeing the clear cut differences someone else mentioned, as the beginning of the book is shaped rather differently than it is in the movie, although apparently almost everything else from that point on carries over and is almost spot on.

As for Catching Fire and Mockingjay, I hear that one of those books is going to be split into two movies, and while people speculate that it's going to be the third as has been happening with books like HP7 and Breaking Dawn, there's apparently a lot of support for the second movie being the one to be split, or perhaps the third movie being a mix of the latter half of the second and the former half of the third.

Catching Fire comes out next year... speaking of, I never realized audiobooks were so expensive. I was thinking about listening to it as I work, but then I tried to text-to-speech the first chapter sample on my android and that worked nicely, but unfortunately it cuts off it the phone locks, which really blows :/
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Old 03-28-2012, 11:49 PM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deoxys View Post
As for Catching Fire and Mockingjay, I hear that one of those books is going to be split into two movies, and while people speculate that it's going to be the third as has been happening with books like HP7 and Breaking Dawn, there's apparently a lot of support for the second movie being the one to be split, or perhaps the third movie being a mix of the latter half of the second and the former half of the third
That's good. Catching Fire had a terrible suspense ending. There wasn't even much suspense...it was just sort of like

oh. i wonder what happens next.

and then utter apathy until you went and read Mockingjay. It'd be nice to see the real meat of Catching Fire, and the stuff that needs to be remembered, portrayed in the movie, and then the great big plot culmination at the end. Yeah, there's a lot to cover in Mockingjay, but it'll be worth it if we can split D13 from the Hunger Games instead of the unholy union that Catching Fire tried to be.
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Old 03-30-2012, 05:57 PM   #6
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Just finished the first book. Getting Catching Fire tonight. Definitely think they did an excellent job not cutting much out for the movie.
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Old 03-30-2012, 06:13 PM   #7
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Just finished Catching Fire. I can see what Shuckle kinda means. It feels like a very in-between book that is kind of building plot and characters that are needed for Mockingjay.

I really can't wait to get my hands on Mockingjay. This series has sucked me in.
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Old 03-30-2012, 11:37 PM   #8
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Oh my.

>How Gale feels about Peeta x Katniss

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Old 03-31-2012, 12:04 AM   #9
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I feel somehow tempted to reveal some spoilers...
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It would be best to confess as early as possible, to avoid any excess pain through excess attachment. Make sure you express yourself clearly, and no matter what the outcome may be, treat the other as you may treat a friend, applicable at such a stage in life.

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Old 03-31-2012, 12:28 AM   #10
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I will punch you.
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Old 04-01-2012, 04:43 PM   #11
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˙ʎɐظbuıʞɔoɯ oʇuı dɯnظ oʇ ʇıɐʍ ʇ,uɐɔ ı 'ǝɯıʇ ǝɯɐs ǝɥʇ ʇɐ ʇnq 'ןןɐ ʇɐ ןnɟǝsuǝdsns ʇ,usɐʍ buıpuǝ ǝɥʇ ʇɐɥʇ ǝǝɹbɐ oʇ ǝʌɐɥ ןןıʍ ˙ʍou ʇsnظ ǝɹıɟ buıɥɔʇɐɔ pǝɥsıuıɟ ı
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Old 04-01-2012, 08:06 PM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deoxys View Post
˙ʎɐظbuıʞɔoɯ oʇuı dɯnظ oʇ ʇıɐʍ ʇ,uɐɔ ı 'ǝɯıʇ ǝɯɐs ǝɥʇ ʇɐ ʇnq 'ןןɐ ʇɐ ןnɟǝsuǝdsns ʇ,usɐʍ buıpuǝ ǝɥʇ ʇɐɥʇ ǝǝɹbɐ oʇ ǝʌɐɥ ןןıʍ ˙ʍou ʇsnظ ǝɹıɟ buıɥɔʇɐɔ pǝɥsıuıɟ ı
Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway, which was better in your opinion? Catching Fire or The Hunger Games?
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It would be best to confess as early as possible, to avoid any excess pain through excess attachment. Make sure you express yourself clearly, and no matter what the outcome may be, treat the other as you may treat a friend, applicable at such a stage in life.

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Old 04-03-2012, 11:32 AM   #13
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I just finished Mockingjay early this morning, stayed up all night reading it.

I felt empty at first but now I'm just... :/ hmm. Not sure.

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I will say, while emotional, nothing made me come close to crying. Not even Prim's death. I did love Katniss' downward spiral into utter madness though, which had been slowly developing since the first book. Her utter breakdown into insanity after being used as a tool multiple times and her life being the reason so many others died. Pretty riveting. When she chose to assassinate Coin instead of Snow, that was a pretty big 'fuck yeah' moment. I didn't like Coin from the start, and always felt like she and Snow were two halves of the same whole.

Also, of course, PeeNiss wound up coming true in the last paragraph, which was a little nice to see. I was almost sure by that point she was going to end it with Katniss living out her days as a deranged woman, or eventually successfully committing suicide. I would have been fine with those endings, too, if only because it became what was expected by the last 50 pages. Glad it ended the way it did, though.


Edit: more thoughts

Spoiler: show
Peeta was too good for Katniss. She didn't deserve him. He sacrificed so much for her and she was such a bitch to him. He lost his family and home and basically everything and sh le instead chose to wallow in her misery of conflicted feelings for him and Gale. I dunno, Katnias pissed me off a lot in Mockingjay. Her point of view on a lot of things was jumbled and sometimes made no sense, or would be ignorant. I know she's a headstrong teen, but a lot of her shit was just unsorted and missing common sense. I know this was a prominent feature of her development, but I felt like this wasn't really developed, just suddenly all at once "oh I guess I'm stupid and should stop that", instead of gradually trying to change it.

I also felt that while it wasn't a love story, closure between the two deserved more than a paragraph. 1200 pages for that? .... .... .... anyway, do wish we saw her thought processes at the end instead of just "oh. Well, this happened and I felt like this.
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Old 04-03-2012, 01:38 PM   #14
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still haven't gotten a hold of mockingjay

it is killing me a little
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Old 04-06-2012, 09:30 PM   #15
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I've just come back from watching the movie. Obligatory thoughts post a go-go!

Everyone: Oh God he's turning into Talon...

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I felt the movie was fairly accurate, down to a few glaring inconsistencies. The exciting parts were exciting, the tracker jackers had you on the edge of your seat, and the finale was simply amazing. I was surprised at how well the movie timed itself, and I look forward to seeing the sequel - unlike other book-movies (read: Eragon) that were either too long or much too edited to have much of a chance for a sequel.

The loose end with Gale and Peeta was...inadequately expressed, however. I felt like that could have been done in a far more satisfactory fashion. There were a few other problems I had, mostly with the lack of love for the other tributes (seriously, there's Rue, Glimmer, Katos, and PeeNiss (lol I'm going to abuse the crap out of this term) and that's it), but there are a few big ones I'd like to highlight.

First of all, the song. What was up with that? Super tearful, super sad, but it was all about Rue's death and nothing about Katniss' lovely singing voice. Which was kind of the plot point of Katniss singing. I had major problems with that song, and when I heard it, I was very, very worried that there would be no flowers at all. The flowers were there, which assuaged my fears, but I was very disappointed with the song. And "the actor can't sing" is a terrible excuse - the camera wasn't even on her. It's a movie. You can have someone else sing and I'd be okay with it, as long as it's the heartbreakingly beautiful song that Miss Collins wrote into the fabric of her heroine.

And. Dat syrup. Betrayal was a great deal of the motive for Catching Fire and Mockingjay, with the tenuous triangle between Katniss and Peeta and Gale, and the sleep syrup was the embodiment of those tensions. To exclude it was in poor taste, especially with all that time spent on the fact that Peeta didn't want her to go, and the soup, and a bunch of other meaningless things they could have cut. Why this one?

Not to bash the movie, of course - I quite enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's read the book. There are little easter eggs inside ("Foxface" is a special one for those who read the book.), and all in all, it was a good movie.
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Old 04-08-2012, 09:01 PM   #16
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K SO Bought Mockingjay over the weekend and read it all today pretty much.

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It was pretty great, I have to admit, but I was kinda dissatisfied with how the book ended. I felt like there wasn't much of a way that it could have ended other than how it did, but it just made me feel miserable for Katniss. The whole book was spent building her relationship with Gale and then it was just kind of... abandoned. I mean. I don't dislike Peeta/Katniss. But I've never really been convinced of the ship. It just feels like everything that Katniss wanted for herself when the book started was totally abandoned and the rest of her life was just the total opposite of her desires. And she ended up with Peeta. Because it was just how things had to happen.

I'm gonna be honest, I don't see the endgame with Gale working out. And I like the idea of Peeta and Katniss. But it had to be on Katniss's terms. And I feel like it wasn't.
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Old 04-09-2012, 02:44 PM   #17
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I think there's more to the story than the romance, but you're right. I wasn't expecting a happy ending and would have been mildly upset if it were, and I'm kind of glad it ended with Katniss spiraling into madness. It was realistic. She was 17 and had the weight of the world crush her multiple times against her will. Gale represented ruthlessness and hatred, whereas Pertaining represented kindness and generosity. The problem with Suzanne Collins, or more likely her editor, is she isn't good at writing. She can tell a damn good story, but the writing... anyway, to top it off, waiting as many pages as we did to get a verdict in the last paragraph was dumb. "Oh and by the way I ended up with Peeta." Felt like an afterthought and Katniss didn't care, although I'm sure she did, considering she fucked him in the last paragraph, too.
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Old 04-09-2012, 08:01 PM   #18
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Yeah, I get that it wasn't a love story, and I was pretty satisfied with everything that wasn't love story-related, but that's just the one thing that stuck out to me the most.

My friend got mad at me for liking Gale/Katniss in the end. I feel justified, though.
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Old 04-09-2012, 09:09 PM   #19
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You shouldn't.
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Your ship is bad and you should feel bad.
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Old 04-14-2012, 10:02 AM   #20
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Yeah, I get that it wasn't a love story, and I was pretty satisfied with everything that wasn't love story-related, but that's just the one thing that stuck out to me the most.

My friend got mad at me for liking Gale/Katniss in the end. I feel justified, though.
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I thought that she'd pick spending life together romance over I had to pretend to love you so I'd survive romance, but I failed to account for the fact that the author wasn't really writing a story.
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Old 04-14-2012, 10:05 AM   #21
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What confused me was why they called themselves fire-mutts
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It would be best to confess as early as possible, to avoid any excess pain through excess attachment. Make sure you express yourself clearly, and no matter what the outcome may be, treat the other as you may treat a friend, applicable at such a stage in life.

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Old 04-14-2012, 02:27 PM   #22
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What confused me was why they called themselves fire-mutts
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Because their skin was mutilated during the bombings at the end and it had to be surgically fixed. In the end the graftings tore apart and they looked like mutilated burn victims, created by the Capitol and Coin.
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Old 05-08-2012, 08:05 AM   #23
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70 pages in. Here to say that this gets my seal of approval. I KNOW when a book's going to be good. This...is. Unless it has some kind of a major plot hole/ messes up majorly towards the end.
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Old 05-08-2012, 09:14 AM   #24
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So I just realized the house in which I live has the full trilogy. Will read once I finish rereading the Artemis Fowl series. Spoil anything for me and I will track you down and gut you with a knife. ~<3
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Old 05-08-2012, 12:04 PM   #25
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So I just realized the house in which I live has the full trilogy. Will read once I finish rereading the Artemis Fowl series. Spoil anything for me and I will track you down and gut you with a knife. ~<3
Hmmm. Hmmmm... As tempting as it is to spoil the series for you, I know you know where I live, so I'm going to keep my mouth shut so I can keep my life. =D
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