The Hunger Games: Will the Book Escape the Fire? (By Alyssa Hellenbrand)

The Hunger Games: Will the Book Escape the Fire?

Alyssa Hellenbrand

10-23-13

Twelve districts, twenty-four ‘volunteers,’ one Capitol hungry for entertainment, and countless people cowering in fear. Many have already dove into the twisted place that is Panem, a future version of the North America we live in today. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, is a novel mainly directed towards young adults; this never stopped parents from diving in, though. Since the release, not much time had to pass before this novel hit the best seller lists.
Set in a destroyed version of our reality, Panem is home to the Capitol and 12 districts. The districts have a scheme to them, the low your district number, the better your life would be. In the lower district numbers, children are trained in preparation for the hunger games and proudly volunteer. Each district has to have one male and one female tribute. The hunger games are an annual fight-to-the-death in a arena of the Capitol’s choice that are broadcasted on television that all districts must watch. Basically, they are a cruel form of entertainment for the Capitol and a way of showing their power ever since a district rebelled against them.
In the higher-numbered districts, the act of deciding who will represent their district is more a lottery. Names are on folded pieces of paper and chosen out of gender-specific containers at random. One little catch, some names are in the containers more than others. If supplies are for survival, people can obtain them. However, their names are then put into the bowl on another slip of paper. In these districts, being a tribute is normally a death sentence, nothing prepares these people for the hunger games.
Katniss Everdeen is the main character whom hearts go out to. This brave girl comes from district 12 and volunteered to partake in the games after her younger sister, Primrose Everdeen was selected. She is the only volunteer ever from her district, so she shook things up right from the start. The male tribute from district 12 is Peeta Mellark, the bakers son who Katniss grew up with. As the hunger games draw near, personalities are brought to a new light and readers find themselves hungry for the next page.
Suzanne Collins did not just write this one trilogy, The Hunger Games. She has been accomplished many times in the past with different novels and has also written the Underland Chronicles. That series consisted of five novels, but they never reached the popularity that The Hunger Games brought in 2008. Directed towards young adult audiences as an adventurous science-fiction, once the word started to spread of this success, soon the pages of The Hunger Games could be found in the hands of hungry readers. It became a best seller and the release of the movie in theaters got more people diving into Panem’s twisted ways.
This book not only has a plot to hook you in, but it connects to people in numerous ways. The struggle Katniss encounters connects anyone that is found sinking in poverty, living day-by-day. With Katniss being sixteen, many teenagers find her relatable at least a hand-full of times as she deals with love struggles and common teenage distress. Yet Katniss shows a strong sense of responsibility and works hard to keep her family fed by breaking the Capitol’s laws and hunting outside of her district. Dedication to her family and bravery in many cases can allow people to almost feel like they are walking with her throughout the novel.
Although Suzanne Collins has created a wonderful adventure in The Hunger Games, there is one thing that always stands out: the love triangle. Even with violent and brutal moments were Katniss is fighting for her life, there is that cliché sitting around in the back. Love triangles have been very common in many science-fiction novels recently, and Collins did not veer away. She, instead, dug her heels into the love triangle cliché and made it into something different. She made the love triangle less like a dull cliché by adding her own special twist.
All in all, Suzanne Collins created a page-turning best seller with a plot that is relatable and creative. The Hunger Games not only created a good read, but by making Panem a destroyed future version of our reality, people fell right into the novel. Aiding the already wise placement, the characters really made everything work. Some were kind people who just wanted to survive and the spectrum of personalities went all the way to the manipulative, barbaric, and savage characters who hungered for the hunger games. With this novel success, great things are expected from Suzanne Collins in the future.

My Quote

"My favorite book has taught me that people can be more than what others see them as, and if I just learn to push past the boundaries society has built around me, I will make it far in life. Anything is possible if I so decree it, within good reason and sensibility." - Alyssa Hellenbrand

Destined By: P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

My Review

I was indifferent while reading this book, due to the fact that the plot of the story is very repetitive, yet relatable. Destined is the ninth novel in the House of Night series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. This novel tells the story of Zoey Redbird and her best friend, Stevie Rae, as they struggle to keep calm among all of the chaos that Neferet, their High Priestess, is causing in their school. Stevie Rae has taken a former Raven Mocker, a creature of evil, in as her boyfriend, causing all sorts of chaos. His name is Rephaim. Zoey supports Stevie Rae and trusts that if she sees something good in him, he must not be so bad after all. In Destined, the storyline and overall plot of the novel is often repetitive and predictable when viewed with previous novels in this series, yet it is written in a way that is easy to read and it’s a relatable story.

Destined is the ninth novel that P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast wrote for this series and in each of the novels Zoey had some sort of relationship problem, she fought evil, someone either was hurt or killed, and then by the end of the novel Zoey and her friends teamed up together to fight the evil force and won. It’s the same basic plot every time and if they couldn’t come up with a different plot outline for all nine novels, then maybe the series should have ended a long time ago. Some repetition and predictability is fine, and I understand that it’s unavoidable sometimes. Yet after nine novels going through the same storyline with small variances here and there, it’s time to just stop writing this series. There is one other major flaw I have noticed in how these novels were laid out: whenever it seems like P.C. and Kristin Cast are trying to teach us a lesson, they have the characters flawing in that very issue. An example of this would be of all of the times when Rephaim and Stevie Rae are talking and Stevie Rae never truly believes Rephaim, even though the novel had just been trying to teach us that believing in your friends and trusting your partners is essential to bettering who you are.

P.C. and Kristin Cast wrote this book in a way that is easy to read, especially for young adults and teenagers. The way the characters think, speak, and act all are direct reflections on how teenagers are. There is enough immaturity to keep the characters relatable, yet not so much that the characters become obnoxious and the book gets tossed aside as a failed joke. The characters in Destined also provide a way for the reader to relate to them by experiencing the same issues young-people have to go through in reality. For example, Rephaim has to continuously prove to others that he is not an evil creature anymore. “Rephaim stared into Stevie Rae’s kind eyes, willing her to understand” (105). Even though Nyx, the Goddess they devote themselves to, forgave Rephaim for his past and gifted him with the form of a human boy at night in front of the House of Night school, people still doubt him and have suspicion that he will suddenly turn on them. This seems relatable to me because, let’s face it, we have all had someone not trust us for reasons we had no control over. Rephaim is one of those sympathetic characters in the book that you cannot help walking in the shoes of. The other good thing about how the characters were created in this series is the way that the characters aren’t made wiser than their suggested ages normally are, therefore allowing people to connect with the characters without feeling like they are trying to connect with someone completely fake and made up.

Destined has failed, in my opinion, to create an interesting read that will keep people hungry for the next page. A good book should be able to catch and keep my attention while it follows a clear plot that is written in a way that makes for a reasonably easy read. The story should also be a teacher to the readers. This novel did catch my attention in the beginning, however, after a few chapters my attention was easily lost. Too similar were the ideas in this novel compared to the previous novels in the House of Night series. Although a basic lesson was laid out for the reader to gain from this reading, the lesson was lost when the characters failed to stick to the idea. Basically, Destined had a poor storyline that is far too similar to the previous eight books P.C. and Kristin Cast wrote for the House of Night series, the lesson was lost, yet the characters kept me reading - although just barely. This book wasn’t good, but it did have some pros to go along with the cons I cannot look past; therefore, I will state my opinion of this book as one of indifference.

I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

Other Source's Reviews

Robert Neville is a scientist who was unable to stop the spread of the terrible virus that was incurable and man-made. Immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City and perhaps the world. For three years, Neville has faithfully sent out daily radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. But he is not alone. Mutant victims of the plague -- The Infected -- lurk in the shadows... watching Neville's every move... waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But he knows he is outnumbered... and quickly running out of time. Written by Warner Bros. Pictures

It is the year 2012. In the ruins of New York city. Robert Neville who is a military scientist who is the lone survivor of a biochemical disease which was supposed to cure cancer 3 years previous. With only blood thirsty zombies as his neighbors and his trusty dog, Samantha, Robert is trying to discover a cure for this disease and to find out any other people who might have also survived. Written by John Wiggins

---

My Review

The film and book, I Am Legend, caught my attention one day while I was channel-surfing on my TV. At first I missed the opening scene and I was lost, but after a brief moment at the computer, researching what the movie was about, I knew what I had missed. As the story carries Robert Neville, played by Will Smith in the movie, through countless nights of being alone and staying alive in a society of mutant victims. Personally, I do not know how he was even able to stay sane with only a dog to keep him company for such a long time, yet seeing that he does inspires me and makes me think about how I would be in this senerio. I pictured myself trying to research medical solutions to help save the mutant victims, staying alone night after night, finding food and using whatever was left behind to keep myself alive when I had to sleep at night. Then the movie lead Robert Neville down more tedious and testing roads, leaving him completely and utterly alone without even his dog after some mutant canines bit the dog, forcing Robert to kill it before it changed and bit him.

I could not fantum being in such a terrible situation, being so alone and still working on saving New York's mutant society in order to save the mutation from further spreading. Thus, allowing the New York civillians who were all forced to evacuate the city to someday return. The worst part, to me, was how Robert had to leave his family. He had to live every day not knowing how they were doing, knowing his child was growing and his wife was without him. It would drive me insane knowing I was missing my family and for what? Curing a disease that was trapped in New York and already contained from the rest of the world may be important, but I think Robert stayed because he would have wanted someone to cure him if he was bitten and made into a mutant victim.

Erin Hunter's Warrior Saga

I have long been obsessed with the Warrior Saga by Erin Hunter, and now I am choosing to re-read the entire saga and since I have a blog now, I will record how I felt about each and every book. I feel like it would be smart to warn you that these books are about cats that live in the forests behind a development and it explains how they fight to survive and try day-after-day to keep the peace between the four Clans of cats. The Clans are: 

1. ThunderClan
2. WindClan
3. RiverClan
4. ShadowClan

Oh, and they have a heaven-senario going on throughout the saga. All of the Clan cats believe that only warrior cats or cats that were in one of the Clans will go to StarClan. StarClan is like a cat version of our Heaven. The dead go up there and help guide those they left behind, they also provide prophecies and are the only reason all four Clans can even share the forest.

This is a map of the 'forest' where the four Clans live.

A cat from the 'twolegplace' (house cat / kittypet) named Rusty dreaming of hunting in the forest. His paws carry him into trouble when the Clans do not welcome him, even though he is not sure he would want to leave his home.

And so the story begins...