I’ve been itching to re-read The Hunger Games trilogy for weeks now, and what better place to start than with a new CBR? On a sidenote: I’m *thrilled* to start all over again. It’s great fun to read everyone’s reviews and be inspired to add to my reading list.
Less fun is reading about children killing each other. Suzanne Collins does not shirk the horrors that come from a setup presents the dystopia and terror of a world that could easily be ours. As the first book in the series, The Hunger Games is a great first entry into the dystopic/science fiction canon. Collins deftly creates a world that is both suffocatingly confined and scarily huge in the way people’s lives are controlled by the Capitol and intersect with moments of great and fragile beauty. Surely the heroine, Katniss Everdeen, will be known as one of the greatest YA heroines in the genre’s history, yes? I’m sure of it.
I’m not going to bother recapping the book, since a good many of you have read it by now, seen the movie, or both. But I will say this re-read, that I gained even more insight into the characterization of Peeta. My husband and brother do not care for Peeta, whereas I love him. No, LOVE HIM. And then as I read this time, I realized, Katniss is not giving him enough credit. If you’re not Team Peeta from the get-go, it’s understandable, because Katniss is ambivalent about him from the start. She’s not Team Peeta, so he’s not set up to be the great hero of the tale. Still, the way in which he makes himself completely vulnerable and open is heartbreaking. I caught my breath at the end of the novel, because his unflinching sincerity hurts him. You know it hurts him, because Katniss finally recognizes that she has underestimated him all along.
If there was any doubt, I am clearly Team Peeta.
I mean…
On a separate note, while googling for an image of The Hutch, I found this. Jane Austen People (of which I am proud to be one) will find this excessively diverting.
You may also read this review on my personal blog, The Universe Disturbed.
