Actually surprised that I liked this book more than I expected. I read YA books as a buffer between something heavy, or so I can remove items off a book list, which yes, makes me question my life sometimes. The Hunger Games feature prominently so I intended to read it fairly quickly and move onto the next book. Also, I wanted to read the books before watching the movies. And it’s a good book to pick up — the games are set in a convincing dystopia, Katniss Everdeen is a badass lead and if you’re not familiar with the story, then the plot’s twists and turns will give you a bit of a whirl.
It is the world that the Hunger Games is built upon that really sold the novel for me. North America as we know it, absolutely decimated by natural disasters and wars, amalgamated into Panem with (what used to be) thirteen districts and the Capitol. Though the world hit a refresh button, the patterns of classes remain the same. Each district is responsible for producing a certain produce — fisheries, farms, coal — and these are then shipped off to the Capitol. Class segregation it seems, just would not go away. Class exploitation it appears, just gets worse.
The districts rebelled in mutiny and were quickly squashed by the Capitol. The 13th District was pummelled to a gaping void and as punishment, the remaining districts must send a tribute of a boy or girl every year to pop each other’s heads off in the hunger games. There can only be one tribute winner every year, and the winner earns a comfortable life. And so it goes. The games take place in different settings each year, for variety’s sake, and though the games started off as punishment to the district, it devolved into mere entertainment.
It is this facet of entertainment that is the most interesting part of the book. How far are we willing to go for the sake of entertainment? The Districts are segmented apart and what was once an alliance became enmity for entertainment’s sake. It’s bad enough that the victims are children. The tributes are dressed up with their own stylist teams, interviews and the more that they are likeable, the more likely that they will earn sponsorships, which sends over supplies which may make or break the tribute’s chance of survival. Survival, have also become commercialised.
Are we not too far off from the gladitorial voyeurism that is the Hunger Games? The “hunger” is not necessarily just contestants dying from the lack of food, but the hunger of the people for blood-soaked entertainment, the necessity of it. Aren’t we going there? Just look at some of the most successful shows in Netflix globally — like Squid Game, and later, its real-life mutation in Physical: 100. Though nobody really dies there (except their egos), entertainment is evolving to the extreme, and our appetite for it is a plight.
There is an obligatory love story here that is a trope and plague for young adult books, and it ties in to this theme of entertainment. Was Katniss’s relationship with Peeta just a farce, for the sake of selling the romance story, thus having the sponsors rooting for them and give them a better chance? Peeta seemed a bit like a douche as well, changing allegiances as necessary. Both their motives are ambiguous but they have seemed to sold the story of their romance, whether real or not, so that they performed well in the games.
For a young adult book, The Hunger Games is a class above the other cringe-gurging trash. Aside from the two main characters, the rest of the characters only play support, and I guess this is perfectly fine — it is the world that takes centre stage aside from the protagonists. And regardless whether it is original or not (the obvious Battle Royale comes to mind), it is still a highly readable book. Will I go actively looking for its sequels? I wouldn’t say actively, but if I come across them in a book swap or secondhand bookshops for a good price, yes I’d continue reading the rest of the trilogy.
