Sunday, March 20, 2011

Some thoughts I had after finishing the Hunger Games trilogy

Hi all! I know I promised to do my rewards this week, but I don't really feel like writing something lighthearted right now. So I promise I'll send out the awards this week.


Also, thanks Talei, for the Stylish Blogger Award!


This Friday, I got the a hardcover box set of the Hunting Games. I finished reading Mockingjay at 00:30 this morning. I loved it. Really I did.


You know what I love most about it?


The characters are still haunting me. That terrible sadness of so many unnecessary lives lost, is living and breathing in my heart.


And that's interesting, because the only characters that are really explored in any sort of depth are Katniss, Peeta and Gale. The others, we get to know through the tidbits we get in their words and the feelings that Katniss has of them.


And yet, when those characters died, it felt like someone was tearing at me.


Which made me think, sometimes, characters don't always have to be open fonts of information for me to love them.


On the contrary, I think the reason why those deaths are so terrible is because I had this feeling that they had potential to become so much more than they were to me.


And the fact is, in Mockingjay, I missed them.


I still do.


What do you think of the way that Suzanne Collins got us involved with her characters?

9 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I've heard a lot about this series lately, mostly due to the fact that it's now being made into a films. Though I don't usually read YA, I remember someone telling me that these books by S Collins are incredibly violent. Did you find that?

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  3. Glad you enjoyed the series. The first one was my favorite and the last one was my least favorite. While I was really into it, dropping everything to finish those last pages, I had quite a few believability issues. And Katniss is someone who seemed to grow, then decline by the end. Some people agree with me, but many do not.

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  4. I think Suzanne Collins explored such dark, ugly, horrific things, but also such depth of emotion, sacrifice, and beauty. She made me care about secondary characters, too, and that's such a big thing. As you said, even when we didn't get huge details on the lives of these characters, the glimpses were so powerful and full of potential. I love books that make you think about and feel for characters long after reading them.

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  5. By making us care about the characters so much that we wanted to keep reading and reading.

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  6. I cared for the characters in the first two books, but by the last one I stopped caring, especially the main character. The first book is brilliant.

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  7. Suzanne Collins is a genius.

    So glad you liked them, particularly MOCKINGJAY. Lots of polarizing opinions on that book.

    MOCKINGJAY was a painful read, but so amazing. Katniss is dealing with serious post-traumatic stress already, then loses so much later. It's an intense--and brilliant--character study. What's more, there's no nice-and-tidy ending; it's a real ending, bittersweet, with bits of darkness still clinging to it. Masterful.

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  8. I loved the books too. Suzanne Collins is a very gifted writer. Sometimes that discourages me though because I wonder if I could ever be that good.

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  9. Duo, uhm... I found that the thoughts were somewhat violent, but the description was minimal. In fact, I think the series was a lot less violent than my own might be, because I have the know-how to go into blow-by-blows. In fact, she had very little description going during the "violent scenes."

    Theresa, I also found some issues after ruminating on it for a bit longer. I actually found that Katniss grew until about half-way through the second book before she stagnated. However, given who she was, I can sort of understand, as she would not be prone to changing too much. :-)

    Laura, I agree with you. She had me crying by p 38 of Hunger Games. And not because she was very descriptive on the emotions. It was because of the words she chose. Brilliant. :-)

    Good point, Carole. I hope I can get the same right in my story. :-)

    Interesting you should say that, Lynda. Would love to hear why. :-)

    Shayda, I must admit that I Mockingjay was the worst of the three, perhaps because of the way that Catching Fire ended. But I must say that the end of Mockingjay was perfect for the series. :-)

    Connie, it can be very discouraging to think about it like that. But I realize that I will only ever to write with my own style, in my own voice. :-)

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