So I'm a little over halfway through the second book of Suzanne Collin's new YA trilogy that starts with The Hunger Games. I've got to say, so far, I have kind of mixed feelings about it. I feel like I'm probably going to have a big rant about it when I finish the last one (just got a feeling the ending's going to make me mad somehow), so I'll do a better review then. I just have to blog about something that's been driving me crazy about this series.Namely, the male characters. To give you a little overview of the plot, The Hunger Games is about this dystopian future where food is really sort. So they host these games every year and all of the districts have to send two tributes (kids aged 12-18) to fight to the death. The winner gets food for a year and gets to not die in the arena.
Our hero is the surly whiny Katniss Everdean (which I still think sounds like a Playboy Bunny names, I'm sorry) who's a hotshot hunter and really cares about her little sister who she's had to illegally hunt food in the forest ever since her father died in a mining accident.
By problem is this, she has two male characters that are both in love with her and they are NOT well developed. One is Peeta, who is forced to enter the Hunger Games with her in the first book. The second is Gale, her gray eyed, dark haired friend from home who she always hunted with.
Also annoying, for reasons hard to explain, Peeta and Katniss had to pretend that they were in love during the Hunger Games. So Gale got all jealous and Katniss was all like, "I don't really love, Peeta. Or do I?" And it's all very adolescent and annoying.
Not to mention the fact that Gale's in about fifteen pages of the first book where she says he's a good friend and kind of like a brother. Then, throughout the rest of the book is slowly goes from "I wonder if he's worried about me" to "We are in love and we always were and he will be jealous of Peeta!"
I know that I've been guilty of this in my own writing, creating male characters to fullfill my sad, single fantasies. But this book has been getting so much attention it really pisses me off. Especially since, in the second book now, ANOTHER guy has come into the mix that might love her. He's a former winner of the Hunger games and sculpted like a Greek God or something like that. And she's all like, "I never found him attractive before, probably because I knew I'd lose him in the hunger games" which roughly translates to "now I'm going to have three ultra-beautiful, decent guys all clamoring over my whiny, tragic ass."
Maybe I'm being unfair to Katniss, she's been bother me a little bit and I can't put my finger on why. Oh well, maybe I'll figure out by the time I finish the third book.
This book is actually a decent read even though I've been complaining about it, but we will see how I feel at the trilogy's conclusion.
That sounds rather familiar...
ReplyDelete*COUGHBELLACOUGH*
Imeanwhut?
I suppose I shouldn't judge that series if I haven't read it, but it doesn't seem like something I would enjoy (perhaps only as a light read), but let us know after you're done!
I'm not going to lie, I've made that connection before. The difference between Bella and Katniss is that Katniss deserves it somewhat because she's trying to keep her sister and mom alive and then tries to keep both of the guys from getting killed by the super repressive government.
ReplyDeleteBut in the most recent book there was a line where Peeta basically said, "You have to stay alive because you have people that need you. No one needs me, and you dying would destroy my world, so I will die for you."
And then I left to throw up for thirty minutes straight.
Ada, don't read them. (Twilightshit, I mean) You will hate them. But even if you didn't, then you would hate yourself for liking them. It's a no win situation, but mostly because you would devote time to something not worthy of a mention.
ReplyDeleteAnd Peeta sounds obnoxious. "I would totes die for you, you're, like, important." WTF.
I like strong characters. People that have other stuff going on than just some dopey love pairing. This is why I like writing Chronicles so much. They are both strong people on their own (Quinlan and Natoli), but they can learn from each other and help each other in different ways.
And it's interesting, usually when writing or planning stories out, I usually pair people off in twos, sometimes threes. (Romantic triangles, it has to happen..) But I have never had three people chasing after the same person. It's ridiculous.
But at least it sounds like Katniss DOES things. The same could not be said for Bella.