Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games (Book Review)

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Reasons for reading: The Hunger Games (or its sequels) found its way onto so many Best Of lists that I had to read it. Also, it's post-apocalyptic, which is a good enough reason for me.

In a distant future, there is nothing in North America but ruins, devastation and a nation of Panem, an isle of civilization amidst destruction. When one of its 13 districts surrounding the glorious Capitol rebelled, the Capitol destroyed it and created Hunger Games to punish people of the districts for disobedience: every year, each district must sacrifice two teenagers, one male and one female, to compete with the others for fame, glory and comfort. Katniss Everdeen is just an ordinary girl, but when her younger sister's name is drawn at the lottery, she volunteers to take her place in order to save her – the Hunger Games mean fight to death and there is only one winner.

The Hunger Games came as a huge surprise for me. Despite all the hype that surrounded the recent publication of Mockingjay (or maybe because of it), I remained wary of the series and only ordered Book I when it found its way to numerous Best Of lists. I'm glad that I did.

The plot of The Hunger Games is nothing very new or unique – a reality show where teenage contestants fight to death and/or the one who survives the longest wins. I was introduced to the concept in Stephen's King The Long Walk and it intrigued me even then, so naturally, the main plot of The Hunger Games appealed to me despite its similarities to The Long Walk*.

What came as a real surprise, though, was that The Hunger Games was incredibly exciting. Saying that a story is 'gripping' sounds like a major cliché, but it's true; I've read it in one sitting and I loved (almost) every bit of it. I can't remember when I've last read a book with this much suspense and a story so vivid. Collins constructs a very interesting post-apocalyptic world which actually works and doesn't feel too fake or too rigid. Of course, there are questions that go unanswered, especially regarding the economy of Panem, but the reader's attention is gently redirected to the central part of the story – the games – so the reader quickly stops dwelling on other things and becomes immersed in the action..

Katniss is a very likeable character and I was glad to see that, for once, the protagonist of a YA novel is not the archetypal troubled teenager. Sure, Katniss is troubled by some typical teenage problems, and can, at times, be a bit of a Mary-Sue: she has no serious character flaws as far as I've managed to discern, she is pretty, an amazing archer and a capable hunter, brave and caring … The situations she finds herself in, however, make her concentrate on survival and other tasks at hand instead of herself. It also helps that Collins plays the reader incredibly well – one can never be really sure who exactly is and who isn't Katniss friend in the arena at most times.

Speaking of the arena – I half-hoped that there would be some kind of a twist that would show the reader how Katniss' point of view isn't always 100% accurate. There were some passages where Katniss admits to forgetting how many contestants remain in the arena; I hoped that the author would take advantage of Katniss' and reader's confusion to add to the suspense by surprising us with a character we completely forgot about. Sadly, this was not the case; for better or worse, Collins keeps track of all contestants who matter and Katniss never misjudges a situation severely.

Although I practically devoured The Hunger Games, there were still some things that bothered me. I already mentioned most of them, but the one that bothered me most of all was the slight shift of attention from the Games to the love-triangle-in-the-making in the last third of the book. I mean, really? Why does every YA series need one of those? I honestly can't remember me or any of my friends being in that kind of a dilemma when we were teenagers, but in the world of YA series, it seems like a really common thing. Luckily for the reader, Katniss doesn't pay it much thought, but still – the ending is not very promising in that aspect. I'm also not sure whether I like the whole 'rebellious youth' thing; it feels just a bit too generic, even though it's actually logical here, as Katniss lives in a very oppressive world. I just hope that The Hunger Games won't turn out to be one of those YA series which has an empty husk of a protagonist who seems to have all the typical teenage problems combined plus the problem of saving the world/his family/his life.

Despite these flaws (which are, I think, typical for YA genre in general, not just for this novel), The Hunger Games is an incredibly exciting read, filled with action and suspense. I just hope that the sequels stay focused on things other than teenage romance.


4/5



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* I watched Battle Royale in the week between writing and posting this review. What can I say? Some of the things are exactly the same (danger zones, young couple, etc.), but the atmosphere is completely different. In any case, Battle Royale is a great film, but I must admit it made me value Hunger Games a bit less.

By the way, if you want to read a really detailed analysis of The Hunger Games, check out this blog. I admit I barely noticed most of the things she mentioned, probably because I read the whole book in one big bite.

Carrie Ryan - The Dead-Tossed Waves (Book Review)

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Gabry lives a peaceful life in the town of Vista, helping her mother man the lighthouse, never even thinking of setting a foot outside city limits. But when her best friend Cira invites her to explore the nearby amusement park ruins, Gabry can't refuse, not if she doesn't want Cira's cute brother, Cathcher, think that she's a coward. As they cross the fence and find themselves in the forbidden territory, Gabry and Catcher are getting along really well … until the group is surprised by the Unconsecrated.

After reading two of her books, I think I can safely say that beginnings are clearly not Ryan's forte – they always seem a bit too familiar. The beginning of The Forest of Hands and Teeth reminded me of The Village, and the one in The Dead-Tossed Waves could be its long lost twin brother. The protagonist is, again, a teenager, which was a huge disappointment in itself, since I was hoping for an older, more mature Mary. Instead, we get Gabry, a shy girl who doesn't like doing any of the forbidden things her peers like – for example, climbing over the town fences. We soon learn that Mary is still around, that she is, in fact, Gabry's mother, but we don't really see much of her.

What bothers me about Gabry is that she is predictable, which makes her a bit boring. Most of the time, she's either feeling guilty about something (usually for all the wrong reasons) or is being a bit of a drama queen, all the while expressing her feelings in great detail, with more than just a bit of pathos. i.e.: [minor spoiler]

“All the times I wondered about my mother. When I tried to remember her voice and her smell. When I felt empty and wrong for having forgotten her.” (pg. 306)

In fact, this was completely new for me; after Gabry found out that Mary is not her real mother, she surely spent lot of time fussing over how Mary never told her the truth, but never mentioned anything about trying to remember her real mother or 'feeling wrong for having forgotten her'. [end of spoiler]

Sometimes, however, there is a surprising lack of reaction from her. [another spoiler] When she kills someone in self-defence, there are no feelings of guilt, no nightmares or anything.

“I knew I killed him and yet hearing it from someone else – knowing it for sure – makes it somehow different. I realise then that there's a difference between the possibility of hope – the idea of things we can never know – and the starkness of reality. The weight of knowledge.” (pg. 213)

After that, Gabry spends no more thoughts on the incident. [end of spoiler]

As in Forest of Hands and Teeth, characters other than the protagonist are reduced to archetypes. There's Mary, the mother who gives advice and serves as a role model, Cira, the best friend, Catcher, the boy Gabry was in love with before she first left Vista, and Elias, the boy she's in love after she leaves Vista. Gabrielle's dilemmas about who she was and who she is now, complete with the two guys she is/was in love with, reminded me a bit of Scott Westerfeld's Pretties, where the protagonist struggles with similar questions.

As mentioned before, Gabry's reactions can be a bit unusual regarding the situation given. When some of her acquaintances die and the others, including her best friend, are to be exiled, Gabry doesn't seem very shocked by the deaths but is very concerned about how she ran away and left her peers alone with Mudo (aka Unconsecrated aka zombies), even though they don't seem to be friends of hers and she couldn't do much to help them either way. [minor spoiler] When Mary, on the other hand, tells Gabry that she's in fact not her biological mother, Gabry throws a fit about her being someone else's daughter and Mary being selfish. Even worse, she keeps being a drama queen about it, thinking about how Gabry is not her real name and how Mary is not her real mother.[end of spoiler] She also has some very unconvincing issues with being courageous – she is too afraid to follow Mary into the Forest but gladly and without much fear returns to zombie-infested wastelands to see a boy she likes, despite the danger.

Where Mary was atypical but likeable, Gabrielle is the typical 'good girl' who always does the right thing, but I still found it hard to sympathise with her. Her problems mostly seemed overblown to me; she made so much drama about every little thing that I found it hard to feel for her when she talked about some more serious problems, using the exact same tone.

I have no problem with books that are mostly character-driven, as The Dead-Tossed Waves certainly is, but they tend do be very hit and miss, especially since everything depends on the protagonist and how well the reader likes him/her. The Forest of Hands and Teeth was really good mostly because Mary was an interesting, refreshing character. Sadly, Gabrielle is not such a character – we've seen her type many times before. Since the plot backing her up has some problems with being predictable, and, at times, corny, The Dead-Tossed Waves is a huge disappointment for me. The book in itself is not so bad, but it doesn't even come near to living up to it predecessor.


3/5






Trin



Related posts:
-Trin's review of The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Carrie Ryan - The Forest of Hands and Teeth (Book Review)

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Zombie apocalypse came and went, but generations later, there is still a group of survivors left – not that zombies are gone, though. Mary is a teenager growing up behind well-guarded fences in the middle of Forest of Hands and Teeth. Her village, run by the Sisterhood, is in constant danger of being overwhelmed, but Mary has other problems: the boy she fancies decided to marry her best friend and her mother just got bitten by one of the Unconsecrated.


When I first heard about The Forest of Hands and Teeth, I was all 'Yay, another post-apocalyptic book!' and was eager to see how this particular zombie apocalypse turned out. The beginning was not what I expected, though - the setting is interesting, but the world of Forest of Hands and Teeth only works if you don't think about it too much. The zombies (or the Unconsecrated, as Mary calls them) are presented as if they were an unstoppable force of nature, even though it's not clear where they all even came from, seeing how it's been generations since the original outbreak, and they seem to be able to swarm even the most prepared villages. People from Mary's village also seem to have a habit of wandering too near the fences, there seems to be an unlimited amount of fence material and the more I read about how the village works, the more similar everything seemed to The Village. Luckily, this village is not the main focus of the book, but instead only provides a background for the protagonist's various problems and dilemmas.

Mary is a typical teenager – stubborn, a bit naïve and capricious. This was why I had a hard time deciding whether Forest of Hands and Teeth is a YA book or not, because she, despite her age, is also a very non-typical YA character, mostly because not only she's far from perfect, I also find her very hard to empathise with. She rarely speaks her mind and abides by the norms of the society she's trapped in, even though she despises them; any rule-breaking she does seems coincidental. She is quick to notice other people's failings, slow to realise her own and most of the time completely passive. Even though she mentions all kinds of sacrifices she's willing to make, those, too, would require only minimal participation from her (for example, agreeing to a 'scandalous' proposal, but not voicing it). I actually found all that pretty refreshing – I'm used to YA protagonists who are rebellious, active, and all in all the person most teenage readers would love to be. I can't imagine that many teenagers would want to be Mary, but she does strike me as a pretty realistic character.

The other Mary's personality trait that I found atypical was her inability to be satisfied with anything that doesn't go according to her various daydreams. She is unhappy with a boy who fell in love with her because he is not 'the one', and never gives him a chance to prove himself; when she finally gets to be with the boy she supposedly loves, she quickly gets bored and starts longing to fulfill her long-time wish to see the ocean. Where a more typical YA character would realise (probably with a little help from a good friend) that they've been too selfish ans try to make amends, Mary chooses her wish over everyone she knows and leaves them to their own devices and unknown fate.

That's actually what made the book for me and what I liked most about it. Mary is stubborn, unreasonable and selfish, but not annoying; the reader may not agree with her decisions, but has to go along with them. True, the setting (and the zombies) is there only to provide a background and other characters are not nearly as lifelike as Mary - mostly, they're only archetypes (the best friend who grows distant, the older brother who loves her sister despite a grudge, the two love interests who (of course) both fall in love with her, the strict teacher …) for Mary to interact with, but Mary herself is a very nicely written, realistic character; the journey to her realisation of what she really wants is what makes this book well worth reading. I can't wait to see what the sequel (The Dead-Tossed Waves) will bring.


4/5



Trin



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Yet another skipped week. Study time = crazy time.

Stephen King - Under the Dome

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On a usual October morning, the residents of Chester's Mill find themselves abruptly cut off from the rest of the world by an invisible dome. While most people are concerning themselves with confusion and casualties, some of them have other things on their mind: Dale Barbara is now trapped under the dome with the very people he was trying to escape; 'Big Jim' Rennie plans to extend his already significant influence to hold the town under his control, while his son, Junior, discovers that most problems can be solved with murder ...


Under the Dome starts in King's classic style. The narrative is interesting enough to capture the reader from first moment onward; King perfectly depicts the feeling of a small town where most everybody knows most everybody else down to the mistakes of their grand-grand-fathers. There are plenty of characters, which adds to the small town feeling but can sometimes be a bit annoying since it is fairly easy to confuse people with similar names, especially because not all of them play a significant enough role in Under the Dome for the reader to know exactly who they are.

Along with his usual qualities, King seems to have kept all of his weaknesses as well. He still has a bit of a problem with 'show, not tell' principle – he makes almost no distinction between the behavior of adult people in different age groups. Dale 'Barbie' Barbara, the 30 years old protagonist, could easily be aged anywhere from 40 to 80 – he is described as 'Iraq war veteran' and at first, I was sure he took part in the Gulf War. He doesn't act like a young man who grew up during the 80's and 90's – he doesn't care about technology, his way of thinking and acting is universally mature and apparently, he is into apocalyptic fiction:

“[...] It was built in the fifties, when smart money was on us blowing ourselves to hell.”
“On the Beach,” Barbie said.
“Yep, see you that and raise you Alas, Babylon.”

Not that there's anything wrong with apocalyptic fiction (I'm a fan of it myself), but this little piece of conversation just didn't work for me. It's as if Barbie's different characteristics just didn't add up - he did not strike me as a real person, more like a rough character sketch. Kid characters are a bit more plausible, but there is otherwise no difference in maturity, responsibility and general behavior between the characters aged 20, 30, 40 or more. Aside from that, the characters are wonderfully written, with various life stories, personal traumas and moral dilemmas.

Under the Dome is set in the not-too-distant future; this, from what I gathered, means somewhere between 2012 and 2016. It, however, doesn't seem like the people of Chester's Mill keep up with the times: an iPod is referred to as 'one of those computer-music doohickies', kids born in the 00's wish to be characters from Star Wars for Halloween (again, nothing wrong with that, but it strikes me as a bit odd – why not Pokemon, Hello Kitty, Dora the Explorer, anything that is a bit more recent?). And of course, the gift of blank CD's at the end of the book. Even now, this one must top the chart of lamest gifts for your SO (or anyone, actually) ever, and I can't even imagine how lame it will be in, say, 2014. Sure, King needed these blank CD's for plot's sake, but he could've at least said that they were meant for a 'Back to 2000's' party or something.

Speaking about the ending – it's as sudden and unrelated to the rest of the story as endings in King's books often are. King makes a mess out of Chester's Mill, creates a very tense situation which makes the reader eager to see how it will all resolve. The book, however, ends after a sudden turn of events that erases all the previous problems and leaves a lot of little details unexplained.

Despite everything I've just said, Under the Dome is a very good read. Mistakes and inconsistencies are mostly lost during the fast-paced turn of events – Chester's Mill sees more action in just a few days than other towns see in years, so it is easily to get confused and get the feeling that it's all been going on for ages. Some of the characters also seem to have gotten confused – they act excessively or overconfidently, regarding that they have been trapped under the dome for only a few days. Other than that, characters are (mostly) plausible and full of life, with their own stories and reactions to the sudden isolation. These reactions are what King builds most of his story on, and I must say that it's a pretty good story, worthy of a re-read.

4/5







Trin

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Sorry for not updating in two weeks. I was elsewhere, having fun :P

Richard Matheson - I Am Legend (Book Review)

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"I Am Legend" (Amazon: UK, USA)
by Richard Matheson (Wikipedia)
Format: Paperback, 160 pages
Publisher: Gollancz

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Before I get on with the review let me caution you that there are a few major spoilers included - I just couldn’t write a coherent review without them; so if you haven’t read the book yet or are strictly against knowing in advance some of the important issues that the book raises, you should consider not reading further.
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I bought this book based on many recommendations, most of them coming from trusted sources, and I’m glad to say that they’ve once more hit the spot. I bought I Am Legend with a bunch of other books last month, when I was visiting Croatia for one of their biggest SF conventions – SFeraKon (the guest of honor was no other than Richard Morgan). I was determined to be thrifty, but when I decided that I needed every other book on sale at the convention…then the spending spree was inevitable (In my defense, this time around I went for “pure” quality…I bought several titles from SF Masterworks series). My to-read-pile is enormous and since I don’t have an exact schedule worked out I never know which book I’ll read next. I picked up I Am Legend on a pure whim. What I heard about the book before I bought it is that it’s good and while I really wanted to see the movie (starring Will Smith) I decided against it…at least until I read the book first.
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I have to agree with all the praise and really cannot question its inclusion in the fabulous SF Masterworks series – it’s absolutely stunning. I was actually surprised when I found out that it was written way back in 1954 because it could as easily be conceived by any of the current writers – any talented writer at any rate. Matheson set the story in the late seventies (so it counts as a near future post-apocalypse story; at least by that era’s standards). One of the rare clues that give away the fact that the book was written more than five decades ago is the lack of modern technology (computers, mobile phones,…), but while the lack of mobile phones is understandable -- the last man on earth really has no need for them – a microwave and a few other modern gadgets would come in quite handy if he had them at disposal. The depiction of vampires is quite outdated (naïve) as well, especially for post-Interview With the Vampire-era, where Buffy the Vampire Slayer inspired series and urban fantasy literature thrives. But I guess it could easily reflect the view of a modern person that never cared about any horror movies and vampire series.
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The post-apocalyptic urban setting devoid of life and the main protagonist -- a middle-aged American, practical and witty by nature – remind me heavily of Stephen King’s The Stand and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I suppose it’s one of the main reasons why this novel is called an ageless classic :). Besides, regardless of the year in which the book was conceived it takes the events on a whole new level.
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When “post-apocalypse” is mentioned, one inadvertently envisions a bleak and ravaged setting that usually entails the following elements: (1) a small number of survivors coping with chaos and imminent extinction and (2) those same survivors striving to reestablish some sort of order (civilization). In I Am Legend Matheson chose a bit different approach – the society is being actively rebuilt all right, but not by humanity as we know it. The harbinger of the apocalypse in this case is a bacterium that causes people to transform into vampires, and since nobody actually dies from the infection (or rather – they don’t stop living), there is plenty of the so called “survivors” that can rebuild the civilization as they see fit. The apocalypse in this case does not devastate, but trans-morphs – it presents a switch between two modes-of-being that brings the extinction of one race and the birth of another. Hence the title of the book – as the vampire society comes to be, so the human society drifts into myth and becomes a legend almost overnight.
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The main protagonist, Mr.Neville, presents a glitch in this new system, a true anachronism, but otherwise a likable and sympathetic fellow (from the readers perspective that is) – a perfectly ordinary person, not the brightest or the strongest, but definitely one of the most stubborn and resilient, a true survivor (the reason behind why he hasn’t changed is a mere coincidence). He adapts, studies books learns the hard way how to improve his chances of survival against the vampire society. In time he comes to accept the fact that they are not as brainless and evil as he believed them to be – they are as intelligent race of individuals as we are – or, in this case, were. It’s just as hard as with many brilliant works of fiction that manage to touch you in a profound and emotional way, to be one hundred percent objective and analytic – you are prone to let yourself go and just enjoy the ride. This is exactly why this book earned its place with the rest of the SF Masterworks. Strongly recommended and something that fans of post-apocalyptic fiction need to read, if they want to call themselves that.
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(you should bear in mind that this is a very subjective grade – even more so than usual, and is based more on my reading experience than any objective analysis I could muster up)
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~ Trin ~

Cormac McCarthy - The Road (Book Review)

Homo Homini Lupus
~ an ancient proverb comes to life in the most literal of senses ~

It is the end of the world...or very close to it anyhow. We are introduced to ashen ruins of what once was Northern America, now transformed into a slob of lawless grey hell on Earth, devastated by nuclear war. Here and now, scant survivors who haven't abandoned the mores and constraints of old civilized Earth are preyed upon by the ruthless gangs which forsook even the greatest taboo of all – feasting upon the flesh of fellow men and women. In such a godforsaken place we partake the journey of one man and his son on “the road” predestined from the beginning to end with a disaster.

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“When he woke in the woods in the night and the cold of the night…Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one what had gone before…he raised himself in the stinking robes and blankets and looked toward the east for any light but there was none.” (pg.1)

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The above passage chimes eerily prophetic. The tone of the book does not change often, and even then it might be for the worse and not for the better. I should confide to you right away, that this book mesmerized me. I cannot remember the last time a work of fiction awed me so. “The Road” is a heavy-hitter, a true emotional sledgehammer. You ought to be inhuman not to sympathize with one forlorn man and his offspring on their sordid journey, fighting a hapless struggle against the dying earth and the scum that pollutes it.

McCarthy employs a very detached and unembellishing prose; he strums the exactly right emotional cords, and doing it in such a virtuoso sequence so that the story does not turn out overbearingly dramatic or even cheesy. The story is compelling enough to keep you turning the pages, but at the same time you are really afraid to go on, because you don’t want anything bad to happen to the main protagonists. This (1)inherent tension as well as (2)the masterfully built suspense (=)point at a perfect example of literary master work, in my opinion at least.

Our main protagonists, actually the only people really worth mentioning, remain elegantly unnamed, and known to the reader only as “the man” or “papa” and “the child”. McCarthy’s dogged and unblemished descriptions of banal menial chores that only result in small triumphs, which would seem inconsistential in “normal” circumstances, but in the world they are living in decide the difference between life and death. All the above mentioned strategies that the author uses might seem as simple writing tools, but wielded by the hands of such a gifted writer as is McCarthy, they become very powerful – powerful enough to win him the Pulitzer award.

The Atmosphere McCarthy creates is at once simple, extra-sensual, desolate as well as terrifying. “The Road” therefore functions not only as a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel but also as an imaginative horror story.

The biggest off put I can come up with is the ever-present, soul crushing sense of doom. You really have to be in the mood for such an emotionally laden and disturbing tale. But after you turn the last page, you really feel a sense of accomplishment and all the effort pays off.

I must admit that I haven’t read any other works by Cormac McCarthy, but if his other writings are nearly as good as this one, I really should. A bit of trivia – his novel “No Country for Old Men” was adopted to film last year and won 4 Oscars. Congratulations! But this fact doesn’t really surprise me.

A brilliant novel. Read it.

4,5/5 (reviewer)
4,5/5 (Trin)

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