Now for those of you who have been living in some kind of bookless filmless world, you may not know the general basis of the Hunger Games. In which case, essentially its a reality show where the winner is the last one standing. A kind of souped up big brother where they win by killing the others (which actually sounds quite a good idea based on the bits of big brother I’ve seen) The two main protagonists are Katniss and Peeta who are both from district 12 and get chosen to be the tributes in that years hunger games. There are 2 tributes from each district and the winner is whoever is still alive at the end of the games.
Now I hesitate to call this post a review, because I’m afraid I am completely in a minority of one here, in that I did not think it was the best thing I have ever read. I realise that people have been raving about it, and I thought it was ok but nothing special. I should point out here that this is a book for teenagers, and I am not one, therefore I am not the target audience by any means. I had the same issue with the Twilight series, I’ve read them and they were ok but I prefer a good Charlaine Harris for my vampire fix.
I think it was reasonably well written, especially when compared to some of the other most popular books of last year but alongside 50 shades of grey, and the twilight series I think this is probably a book loved by non readers. As I’ve often said before, anything that gets people reading is a good thing, 50 shades of grey whilst I’ve not read it myself is a phemonenon that has got people (women mostly I imagine) out buying books, but I’d love to know how many of those actually bought anything else? I have no problem with adults reading either ‘mummy porn’ or childrens books, but I just hope these people venture outside of that bubble.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the Hunger Games, it was a quick read on a train and I will no doubt read the rest of the trilogy if I saw them on offer, but I wouldn’t rush to read them. I also think that when I was a teenager I wouldn’t have wanted the adults taking over all my good teenage reads so maybe we should just let them have it. There are after all a few billion good adult books ready to be picked up. As I saw on a shop front in Brighton a few weeks ago, the most avid reader can never get to the end of a good bookshop.
A crime readers blog 