"NEW HARRY POTTER!"
This was a proclamation I made about "The Hunger Games" when I finished reading the first in Susanne Collin's beautifully dark and poignant young adult trilogy.
This was a false declaration on my part. I was just so excited to find another book series that I could love almost as much as Harry- especially after my disastrous go at Twilight... I try not to think about that.
This is not the same beast as Harry. It's characters are nothing like
our golden trio- I'd say Katniss, Peeta and Gale should be called our
charcoal trio. There were no hijinks... no down time... no Great Hall
feasts.
In fact there was no food at all.
The Hunger Games: The kind of book where you feel like if you stop reading YOU WILL STOP BREATHING.
Catching Fire: The same- if not a little more of the asthmatic feeling. Also... FINNICK!
Mocking Jay: Not quite the same urgency with this one. It's a war epic- a change in the format makes for a whole different kind of story.
It's a desolate world in District 12 and Katniss is a very unhappy girl with a
boatload of Daddy issues and a whole other boat of Mommy issues. This makes her avoid affection.
Why should she give herself over to Gale when he will probably also be blown up in a mine?
She
lives by a Spock-like logic, because a head of full of whimsy gets you
killed. So why would she think Peeta's affections were genuine when they were there to play a game and young love was the best strategy to win?
At sixteen years old Katniss Everdeen solely provides for her family. This makes her kind of unrelatable for us first world problemers. She's quiet, not much of a talker this one. If we were not inside her head it would prove a difficult read and I would probably dislike her on a level that I dislike another introvert of literary fame- Fricking Fanny Price of Jane Austen's "Mansfield Park".
But inside Katniss's head we are given front row seats to how she watches and assesses her surroundings- her sense of humor gives us bits of light in her dark world. We also learn how much she misses her father, her bitterness toward her mother, her adoration of her little sister and her avoidance of Gale as anything but a hunting buddy.
She's still a mystery though, there are many times in the series when Katniss will think one thing and then will do something completely different. It makes us realize how easy it is for us to do the same and how in her we realize we are also mysteries to ourselves.
While I was always in favor of Gale (HOT). This was never a shipping series for me. This was about the political upheaval and gradual rise of The Mockingjay, the face of a rebellion that may be just as corrupt as the Capitol. THIS IS WHAT WAS IMPORTANT. This is why I kept turning the page until 4 AM every night.
Katniss. Her flaws. Her struggle. Her strength.
There is some serious stuff going on here guys and slapping it with a YA label does not limit the impact it can have on ANYONE.
NEW MANTRA-
You can find brilliance in anything if there is passion in its creation.
