Young Adult fiction and ‘The Hunger Games’ – did I miss something?

by limebirdmike

[Warning: this blog contains spoilers and some content that may not be suitable for those of a weak or squeamish disposition. This blog also contains gore.]

I’ve just finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy and I have to ask: what’s all the fuss about? Ok, so the first book’s definitely the best of the three, but even that’s pushing it. The characters are annoying at best and rarely are they developed sufficiently, while the first person ‘present tense’ perspective just doesn’t work.

But this blog isn’t about The Hunger Games as books, nor is it about the author or indeed the many fans of the books that there are out there. No, this blog is about the content, and what it reflects about us as a society.

The content is – and I don’t use this term lightly – horrific.

Why, for all that is good in the world, are the atrocities depicted in the Hunger Games allowed to go to print? Why do we package these things up in brightly coloured books aimed at impressionable youngsters, and sell it as something that is both acceptable and (dare I say it) ‘fun’?

For those of you who haven’t had the chance to read The Hunger Games, the series depicts a world in which children are selected at random to fight in massive arena death-matches in order to win food supplies for their district. If you’ve ever seen the film Battle Royale you wouldn’t be too far from the mark, though it has to be said The Hunger Games is nowhere near as subversive.

So anyway, aside from the obvious brutality of children killing each other, as the series progresses and the civil revolt against the system spreads to the Capitol, President Snow brings the atrocities from the hunger games onto the city streets. These include genetically engineered mutants, death beams, choking smogs and all sorts of other horrible evils. At one point someone even dies by having their flesh melt from their body.

Yes readers, you did read correctly, and yes, this is a book marketed for young people.

What gets me more than anything is not so much the atrocities themselves, or indeed the lack of truly intelligent, subversive story telling. What gets me the most is the fact that to make this stuff suitable for children there is barely any effort made to dwell on what’s happened. This is a world without consequences; a text where the reader is actively encouraged to ignore both the human and the practical implications of what has happened. It’s the literary equivalent of the Michael Bay movie – lots of explosions and people dying and getting hurled about, but with no real attempt to engage with the audience.

It saddens me to think that young people (and adults!) are reading this stuff and enjoying it, while blindly ignoring the messages that responsible authors should be ensuring reside within their text.

As I finished the third book in The Hunger Games series I couldn’t help but think it could have been so much more. Even though the premise clearly isn’t original, there was still a great deal of potential to be had. As I read the books I really wanted them to delve further into how the rebels are just as bad as the original oppressors, and how Katniss is mercilessly exploited for the ends of others. Doing this in the final two chapters really isn’t good enough in my mind, and I finished the series feeling empty, wishing instead that I’d dedicated my time to re-reading some of the classics instead of this ‘tick box’ bestseller.

I can categorically say to you all now that in my opinion The Lord of the Flies is a much more powerful, much more effective work than the Hunger Games, without anywhere near as many fatalities, and without anywhere near so much gore. For a novel that properly addresses the issues that are hinted at in The Hunger Games read Animal Farm – and new wave ‘young adult’ fiction well alone!

31 Responses to “Young Adult fiction and ‘The Hunger Games’ – did I miss something?”

Ottabelle
July 30, 2012 at 10:59 am

Thanks for being the voice of dissent, Mike! You do raise good points about the books (I haven’t finished them still however I know about what happens, kinda. I know the point you’re making at least.)

The questions you raise are deeper than just a series of books. This is not the worst, in my.opinion, out there. There are even worse ideas being thrown around, where there are characters going with the flow. (To my knowledge) at least katniss fights back and against what’s happening.

Society is lost and seeking something sound. It’s gotten to the point violence is sturdyness. So its a problem that can’t be corrected quickly.

You never know what the right book could do though…

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limebirdbeth
July 30, 2012 at 11:13 am

Interesting post Mike and one that I’m sure will create a lot of debates here in the comments box. I agree with you to a certain extent with the content, in the sense that I don’t think that younger children should be reading some of the sections of the book. I found this quote about the Hunger Games. –

” We could talk all day about the ethical problems of the reality TV parallels in Hunger Games and the question of being entertained by other’s suffering. But the questions raised by The Hunger Games about justifiable murder and violence packs a wallop into a young adult novel that is powerful and thought-provoking. And since the books have become so popular, it’s giving a forum for discussions about ethical decisions that people, especially young people, might not have a forum to talk about otherwise” which I think brings up some interesting points.

However in my opinion, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. One of the most important aspects for me when reading something is that it grips me and encourages me to keep on reading, which this book did. Although I do agree that the first book is the best one. By the third one, it felt like she was rushing a bit and was kind of forced to write it rather than planning a trilogy in the first instance.

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- limebirdmike
  July 30, 2012 at 6:57 pm
  
  I didn’t really address the problems of the books themselves as in this blog I’m more concerned with the messages it’s trying to deliver. As books — I’m gonna say it — I think they’re really poorly written. The first person thing doesn’t work, so the author keeps reverting back to a weird sort of retrospective present tense thing that even now I find hard to describe. Maybe it’s because I read a lot of genre fiction, but I for one didn’t find them one bit compelling as there are just too many holes. With these sorts of things either you succeed on the strength of your writing or on the strength of your ideas. I don’t think the books particularly stand out on either of these fronts.
  
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limebirdvanessa
July 30, 2012 at 11:42 am

I haven’t read the books, so I can’t say whether I agree or not, but I appreciate the conviction and passion in your post. It’ll be interesting to see what others have to say.

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Mayumi-H
July 30, 2012 at 12:24 pm

Wow, nice work, Mike! 😀

You’ve captured a lot of what I felt about the first book, anyway (didn’t read the others). Admittedly, Young Adult is not my favorite genre, nor is first-person storytelling my favorite POV style, and I rarely like stories done in the present tense with a terse voice. So, this series probably did not have an easy start, with me! I think what I really wanted was another Battle Royale (which is such a powerful and engrossing character study, it isn’t funny), and Hunger Games wasn’t it.

To be fair, there may be credit to the idea that the author (can’t remember her name) is trying to use the story to show how desensitized people have become to violence and man-made horror in society. As Bart Simpson once said, “If you don’t watch the violence, you’ll never get desensitized to it!” (I think the Simpsons made a better argument for it, though, in their satire.) With the Internet and streaming video, kids today are exposed to more violent and horrific images and stories than they’ve ever been before. What horrifies you or me as adults doesn’t seem to resonate the same way with some children. Maybe because they’re still in that state of blissful denial of their own mortality. Or because we’re raising a generation of sociopaths. Only time will tell. j/k

As for the Young Adult label, I think a lot of books are given that distinction because the stories are not quite subtle enough to be marketed strictly toward adults, yet they’re not simple enough (or perhaps innocent enough, in this case) to be marketed toward children. But, kids will read what they want to read. I read Jaws at eleven years old. A full half of the story went over my head…but I read it mostly because I wanted a story about a big shark. Maybe younger (than us) readers of Hunger Games want a gladiator story that’s written from a perspective they can understand, without any deeper conflict. I’d argue that’s what makes those stories interesting…but, that’s another comment.

Thanks for the post! It really got me thinking on a Monday morning. 🙂

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- limebirdmike
  July 30, 2012 at 7:31 pm
  
  Ah, now this is interesting and raises a few points I didn’t really get round to addressing (probably because I didn’t want to completely go off on one!) Now I don’t know about you, but the more I think about it, the more I think the whole ‘Young Adult’ market is wrong. I know business drives everything, but (as I tried to suggest) I would much prefer to encourage people to read something maybe above their level that encourages them to think* (if they are ready for it) such as Animal Farm, than stick to something that’s ‘dumbed down’ for their age range. The great thing about reading when growing up was that once I’d learn to read to a certain level the whole world became my oyster and I could literally go out and read whatever I wanted. This meant I could go and read Andy McNab — heck, I could go and read Stephen Hawking if I wanted, but nothing was ‘watered down’ for me.
  
  The problem then, in my mind, is that mainstream fiction in general seems to be far too watered down. Just look at the big sellers in the adult market! Sometimes I think the Victorians may have been right when they thought the human race was going backwards!
  
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The Masquerade Crew (@MasqCrew)
July 30, 2012 at 2:13 pm

Sex and violence sells. That’s the unfortunate truth. It does speak volumes about our society. And if you don’t conform, you probably won’t succeed as an author. (That’s a generalization and a stereotype.)

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- limebirdmike
  July 30, 2012 at 6:59 pm
  
  An unfortunate truth I’m afraid. I’m just thinking of a certain book that’s quite big at the moment… (Don’t get me started!)
  
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Dorothy Stacy
July 30, 2012 at 2:22 pm

Hi Mike,
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I took the first book out of the library and read the first and last chapter and that was enough for me. It reminds me of the short story, “The Lottery”. I definitely don’t think it is suitable for children. No wonder the kids are doing the things they do, when they read and watch stuff like that.

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- kford2007
  July 30, 2012 at 3:50 pm
  
  I think it unfair to judge a book by its first and last chapters, but that’s me. I also don’t believe kids do what they do because they read a book or watch a movie or play video games. Kids who are violent have a propensity toward violence. That’s like saying because you watched Hannibal that you’re going to turn into a cannibal serial killer, or because you play Halo, you’re going to gear up and shoot everyone. There has to be something ‘wrong’ psychologically to make someone commit a vicious crime. Trust me, these kids out there doing bad stuff are not the ones curled up with The Hunger Games in the comfort of their own homes.
  
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- limebirdmike
  July 30, 2012 at 7:05 pm
  
  Hi Dorothy, thanks for your comment. I don’t think it’s unsuitable for children as such, but I do think it fails not just children, but everyone, in the sense that it doesn’t encourage them to *think* about what’s happening, or the consequences of anything that goes on. This in stark contrast to something like Lord of the Flies which I think it a far more effective work.
  
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CJ
July 30, 2012 at 2:25 pm

I’m sorry, but I have the sense you went into these books with the mind set that you weren’t going to like them and so found every reason you could find not to. As a survivor of violence who suffers from PTSD I can tell you that Katniss suffers far longer than in the last couple of chapters – the change is subtle, true, but if you pay attention you can see it. Also, as to the characters….wow, you are really, really off! With the exception of Peeta who tended to be a little too perfect for my taste, I felt all of the characters were wonderfully written! In these days of perfect Hermione who always had all the answers and Mary -Sue ..I mean Bella Swan, it is so refreshing to see a main female character who is full of faults, makes horrible mistakes and sometimes just doesn’t know what to do. And yes, the content is horrible – it is supposed to be. But it is no worse than any movie that has come out in the last few years. Collins wrote the deaths tastefully and subtly – granted, the last book was pretty graphic – but since when is war pretty? Melted in a machine – blown to bits by a land mine – tortured in an enemy camp for information. Ever read any of the accounts of what was done to US soldiers in Vietnam POW camps? The Hunger Games is meant to be a cautionary series, note that it is set in the future. And by the way – I am a 46 year old mother who would gladly have my children read this book. Particularly over watching a few hours over the Kardashians and Jersey Shore.

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- limebirdmike
  July 30, 2012 at 7:22 pm
  
  Hi CJ, thanks for your post. Let me address each of your points in turn…
  
  Firstly, I hope I didn’t read them with any sense of anticipation. I read such a wide variety of books, I am quite open to anything as long as it’s well written and tells me a story. From my perspective, THG flatters to deceive. It pretends to be a lot deeper than it really is.
  
  I’m sorry to hear about your background, but from your comment I get a strong sense that perhaps your own background has influenced your reading of the book. If you enjoyed it and took something away from the book then that’s great — I’m pleased for you. However I would argue that there really isn’t anywhere near as much depth to the storytelling as you think there is. Yes, Katniss is a flawed character, and there really is room for more flawed characters in children’s literature, but at the same time I don’t think this fact alone makes the book any better.
  
  And now to your point on violence. I have to say I think you might be missing my point here. In actual fact I read a lot of military non-fiction and am well aware of what *real* violence and real horror is. In fact if anything, it was these feelings that inspired me to write this blog. My point is that at no point during the third book did I feel that the world was embroiled in a real war. It just didn’t seem real, and for this reason nothing that happens has any significance for me. There’s no subtlety to these books — they’re not anywhere near as clever as you think they are. The way it’s constructed I’m not even sure the author originally intended to even *write* the third book (I may be wrong).
  
  Don’t mistake me — I’m not saying you shouldn’t read these books per se. What I am saying however is that there are a lot better books out there that are a) far more enjoyable b) far better written and c) contain more powerful ideas and address their subject matter in a far more effective way than THG. Sure, give your kids THG to read, but give them Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm afterwards! 🙂
  
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kford2007
July 30, 2012 at 2:54 pm

First, let me say I applaud your passion, Mike. We are nothing if we don’t hold true to our beliefs.

Second, as a reader and a writer, I don’t believe in censoring any writing. We, as readers, have the power to not read anything out there. As a writer, no one has the right to say a story can’t be written because it’s too twisted or demonic or insert whatever reason. I personally ban censorship from my life.

Third, I personally enjoyed The Hunger Games (and it’s sequels) a lot for the very reasons Mike doesn’t. It’s not that I’m twisted or demented but because our society is inundated with this sort of thinking already. In certain areas of the world, people are treated with little respect. Governments take, they rob their resources, while their people suffer and live in squalor and war. Certain religions allow women to be put to death because they were raped. War is everywhere around us, photographs dangled before us every day of dead and or mutilated bodies. Why just the other day my teenage sons informed me of a naked cannibal in Miami who ate the face off a homeless person. I didn’t believe them. I looked it up. It was true. The pictures were in the Miami Herald and all across the news. They even took a picture of the guy’s mutilated face and showed it with a warning attached. We talk of cloning, stem cell growth, the financial system going down the drain, rampant hunger, disease. Officials sitting in office reaping the benefits, while many are losing their jobs and have no money to pay expenses. All the topics The Hunger Games deals with are facts of our lives. To a child, these events and the pictures that document them are overwhelming. Kids need an outlet where they are faced with these predicaments and they, the kids, can find a solution.

The Hunger Games left me stunned. I couldn’t stop thinking about that 1st book for months, not just days. It made me take a long look at our world. Do you now how many governments and cities around the world could be substituted for Panem? Do you see how many outlying cities can take the place of those 12 districts? If you talk to a lot of kids, they already feel they are the sacrifice for the future. They are already having to fight adult games, fiercely competing for jobs, school, hierarchy among friends and family. The pressure to be the best of the best just to survive has never been stronger. Many kids have to take on adult roles because the parents can’t work or they’ve abandoned the kids. You have to remember with YA, teens are all about ‘me’. How is the world affecting ‘me’? They feel things, see things, sense things a million times stronger than adults. Their sensory perception is reading in 10,000 pixel technicolor clarity. That’s why teens love this series. Katniss IS one of them. She is someone who now has to be the strong one in the family and take over the role as parent because her mom can’t be there for her or her sister, Prim. Katniss has to learn the ‘street’. She ‘sees’ the world without the blinders of the rich. As a parent four times over, our teen kids view life as a game. Survival of the fittest. The fact that it’s kids that are being offered up as a sacrifice in the Hunger Games makes the story even more compelling. For parents, adults, we find it difficult to imagine a world where our kids are the victims, the pawns, yet every day kids deal with this issue on a very personal level. Many kids are abused verbally, mentally, sexually and many are literally murdered because parents and adults ‘rule’. The Hunger Games allows kids, on a literary level, to take back their lives, to stop the atrocity from occurring any longer. They are given the power to fight back and destroy evil.

I wonder if the sacrifices were adults, would there be such an outpouring of anger? I don’t remember there being such a uproar when Richard Bachman (a.k.a. Stephen King) wrote The Running Man. While similar in story, The Hunger Games gets under our skin because the victims are kids. Kids shouldn’t die. Not for adults. And yet it happens every day in real time.

I think when a novel holds up a metaphorical mirror to society, and shows us the parts of us we despise, we seek to purge the book from our site or voice our disdain over it being in print to begin with. We want to prohibit that which exposes our fears or recognizes our weaknesses. The darkness (and the hope) of our world as a whole is reflected on the pages of The Hunger Games. It is because of its raw edginess, its nerve-searing truth, that we either love it or hate it.

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- limebirdmike
  July 30, 2012 at 7:34 pm
  
  Wow, what a well constructed post! I am pleased you found THG so affecting. Perhaps my problem with it is that I didn’t find it affecting at all. Maybe it’s because I read a lot of ideas-heavy genre fiction, but something about the way THG is constructed just didn’t work for me.
  
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  - kford2007
    July 30, 2012 at 11:11 pm
    
    And you know what…that is ok. Not every book is going to affect everyone the same way. The thing is, The Hunger Games gets people talking about it. We, as authors, can only be so lucky if our novels get the same reaction. 🙂
judithatwood
July 30, 2012 at 3:42 pm

I’m going to leave this comment, even though I don’t have examples at hand. I believe fiction has been full of this kind of gratuitous violence, although certainly not aimed at children. Something in the human psyche enjoys the Michael Bay movies, and the Hunger Games-type fiction. A sad story indeed.

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- limebirdmike
  July 30, 2012 at 6:52 pm
  
  And that is exactly my point! I’m still trying to figure out whether we naturally like this sort of thing, or if we’re *told* we should like this sort of thing! Perhaps a little philosophical for a writing blog!
  
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  - kford2007
    July 30, 2012 at 11:34 pm
    
    You know, Mike, I think we are all a little morbid. We slow down to look at accidents on the highway. We pay to watch people beat each other up (boxing and wrestling). We are enthralled with stories like the Casey Anthony trial and we couldn’t wait to catch the first glimpse of the Colorado shooter, James Holmes. We all have a twisted side to us. It’s just the majority of us don’t act on it. Maybe that’s why thrillers and suspense novels are such big sellers. We can satisfy our hunger for morbidity through novels. There has to be a need before the need can be filled. The authors who write said genres know it and they know how to tap into it.
Eliza Shane
July 30, 2012 at 6:06 pm

Reblogged this on Eliza Shane and commented:
Thank you, Mike. And let me say, Thank you again!!! I hear you!

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nelle
July 30, 2012 at 11:25 pm

I’ve not read any of the three, nor do I wish to read them. That said, you make some valid points, although for context, there is Lord of the Flies (as you mentioned) but also say… A Clockwork Orange. Both are brutal, both take violence to extremes. I recall reading LOTF and feeling horrified by where the story went. I didn’t like it for that reason, even if the author tried for a larger message.

A Handmaid’s Tale is a gruesome view of a US gone over the deep end of radicalised religion. No book as so engrained itself into my soul, and as I watch the right of this nation attempt to disassemble women’s rights, it keeps clawing back into my consciousness. Except… it isn’t YA.

Senseless violence happens. And sometimes, senseless violence happens in a context devoid of hope, and in that way, perhaps the author succeeded by creating a world where the reader feels absent that hope.

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limebirdlaura
July 31, 2012 at 1:15 am

I love the enthusiasm to your post Mike, but I’m afraid I have to disagree with you. Don’t get me wrong, I understand your points and why you make them and they do have some validity to them, but the main part I’m disagreeing with is when you say, “Why, for all that is good in the world, are the atrocities depicted in the Hunger Games allowed to go to print? Why do we package these things up in brightly coloured books aimed at impressionable youngsters, and sell it as something that is both acceptable and (dare I say it) ‘fun’?” – I never got the idea from any of the books that it was fun. Sure it’s fun to read in terms of it being an adventure, and seeing how the adventure unfolds much like watching a good action flick is fun. But I don’t think Suzanne Collins was saying, “Hey kids look at this, going to war with your peers is a hoot come get some!” I think it was more a social commentary on the way things seem to be headed.
Also, I don’t think it’s too violent for the audience it was intended for. There are several “young adult” novels that are fluff and nothing to them, but there are also books out there about the horrors of drug addiction for instance. When I was a teen I read a novel about a group of kids all addicted to cocaine (I think) It was horrifying. It was depraved, but it didn’t make me want to run out and start shooting up. Quite the opposite. I think the target audience of The Hunger Games isn’t 10 year old’s, it’s more for the 15-18 age group I’d say. That age group (I think) has seen enough of the world to understand what the hunger games is all about, but they still have that wide-eyed fantasy view of the world to be able to appreciate the heroin of the novel and her friends, fighting for what is right. Or for what they think is right.
I know by the time I was 15 I’d lived through enough crap and seen and read enough horror novels to not find THG too graphic. And that is not to say I’m desensitized to violence. Maybe I am to an extent but what I mean is I still don’t think it would be alright for kids to go trying to kill each other. I still find scary movies scary. I still find real violence on the streets depressing. I cry at sappy McDonald’s commercials to be fair …
My main point is that to me personally this novel isn’t too graphic for the youth it’s intended for. Lord of the Fly’s and Animal Farm are also great novels and (for me at least) were both required reading my second year of high school. I think there are far worse things at the theater and on television that kids are exposed to. Maybe that’s saying something about our world and our society – something that isn’t pretty – and something that I think Collins herself probably agrees with.

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- limebirdbeth
  July 31, 2012 at 9:47 am
  
  What she said ^^
  
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limebirddennis
July 31, 2012 at 8:47 am

Great post, Mike! It has really started people talking.

I recently completed a YA novel and so I was interested in your perception that YA is ‘dumbed down’ for that age range. That is not how I see it all. It is (in my mind) simply a genre of fiction where there has been (or should have been) some thought about making the story relevant for that age group – that is why the protagonist is nearly always from that age group. How many young adults are interested in reading about the mid-life crises of 40-something wage slave? Whereas they may be interested in reading about how that 40-something’s daughter deals with crazy parents. Good YA fiction is also relevant to adults (and parents might learn something through reading about family relationships through the eyes of a child…).

In some ways I do agree with you, however, YA is a publishing construct and a marketing tool. In 1968 Alexei Panshin wrote “Rite of Passage” which followed 12-13-14 year old Mia through survival class and her subsequent ‘trial’; this would put it squarely in YA territory today. It won the Nebula Award in 1968 and was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1969. So, YA science fiction has been around for a long time (see also the “Heinlein Juveniles” of the 40’s and 50’s, which I grew up on!).

Personally I think that there is good fiction and bad fiction, within YA this also holds true.

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ProfeJMarie (Janet)
July 31, 2012 at 1:44 pm

I actually thought that The Hunger Games trilogy did a better job than most at depicting the effects of violence. Katniss continually shares her thoughts about the horror of the whole situation, her continual mistrust of others based upon her own experiences, and the realization that she will still do as she must. She avoids killing at all costs, gives dignity to Rue, and we also see an interesting difference between Peeta and Gale within the whole battle and how that affects Katniss and who she is ultimately attracted to even if her loyalties remain strong with both. I was not fond of the 3rd book at all for multiple reasons, but one of them is because as a story it was too uneventful – but the feeling of it dragging on also felt extremely realistic in what war is. Long. Painful. Tiring. And the very very end? Realistically quiet. Very quiet. After the ordeal that someone too young has had to go through (also, I think, fairly well transmitted), I love that Collins shows Katniss as simply needing the simple, quiet life.

I understand your points about how violence in YA can go unchecked and agree that many books do not necessarily do a good job of giving a moral context for it or offer a realistic character reaction. I just read Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris and what happens at the end with no consequence or true aftermath disturbs me in this same kind of situation. We can say that books can offer great talking points with our kids/students, but if you are someone like me and have a child that reads so much, so quickly that you can’t always keep track of everything he is reading, then you want a book to be all encompassing for this. I ended up reading The Hunger Games because of a friend’s recommendation. I read it before my son did based upon my sister-in-law’s concerns. Fortunately, I think Collins does pack a lot in it to make me feel confident that other kids – who don’t have adults talking about it with them – would not come away feeling that death and violence were treated lightly in it at all

Finally (wow, long comment – I’m sorry), as a teacher, wouldn’t it be interesting to teach Lord of the Flies and The Hunger Games as companion pieces? (Well, maybe not for you, of course, but for me! Haha!) It’s been since high school (a lot of years ago) since I read Golding’s novel, but I can see some interesting parallels to make, even if the circumstances are quite different.

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Gabi Coatsworth
July 31, 2012 at 8:12 pm

The point is, that you read them all. And I think that’s because the author does such a good job of plotting, I read an interesting article about why teenagers love dystopian fiction – it’s reprinted on my blog here: http://writeconnexion.wordpress.com/2012/03/18/the-hunger-games-and-the-teenage-craze-for-dystopian-fiction/. Not trying to advertise, just thought it gave a plausible explanation.

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Pete Denton
July 31, 2012 at 10:51 pm

I’ve read all three of these this year and enjoyed them. I only read the first so I could tick off having read a YA book for an eclectic reading challenge. After reading the first, I had to read the next. And, then the next. They aren’t the best books I’ve ever read, but there is something about them that compelled me to read all three. The third was the weakest of the trilogy.

I’ve never read YA before so was surprised at the graphic nature of the subject matter, though YA is Young Adult not child. At 14 up I watched lots of horror films and what books I did read were adult crime novels. That was a long time ago, but has anything changed? Children grow up earlier and earlier all the time. It depends on what age was wanting to read them. If I had been given the option of reading them back when I was a teenager then maybe it would have turned me on to reading more.

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Neeks
August 1, 2012 at 12:51 am

Wow, GREAT post Mike. I let my daughter read the books, as did I. Like many others seem to feel, the first was the best, the second okay and the last (for me) felt kind of disconnected. I couldn’t get into it like I did the others.

Gratuitous Violence vs. Our Children. I found the fact that Katniss continually was horrified by what she saw and herself had to do was a redeeming quality in this series. Unlike Bella Swan, who wanted to die for her boyfriend (isn’t that a great message for our teens) at least these characters met life head on and figured out a way to survive with as little collateral damage as possible. Katniss was hyper-aware of how her actions affected those around her. She was concerned for everyone, not just herself and what she wanted. These are good messages for our kids.

It’s hard to say what we should let our kids read and what we shouldn’t. I read LOF when I was much too young and was terrified by it (I read it because my older sister had). I’m almost 50 now and still clearly remember how it scared me. Myself, I think we have more to fear by those horrible video/handheld games that glorify the violence, than we do from the characters in books that try to deal with it and then make a life for themselves afterward in a responsible way. As a parent I’ve made sure to stop and interpret difficult areas of books and movies (as well as cut out the booty shots).

I agree with you Mike, that we need to monitor what our children see and read but personally, I found the Twilight Series to be more threatening to me as a mother.

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limebirdmike
August 1, 2012 at 12:13 pm

Thank you all for your comments. As a general point to all of you I should perhaps say that it’s not so much the violence itself that frustrates me with THG, but more the fact that this violence doesn’t (for me at least) seem to have any consequences. If you’re going to write a book on such a powerful subject as THG then, from my perspective you need to explore these issues to a far greater depth. Maybe I’m just too subtle sometimes!

[Footnote: While I don’t mind people making comment about my work (in fact I relish it!), to adopt such a patronising and demeaning attitude as that demonstrated by David Farmer in his blog is not on in my book. Attack the writing, not the person, and use real arguments instead of rhetoric. Shouting louder and with a more condescending tone than someone else does not equate to ‘being right’. I will explore elements of his argumentative style in my next blog.]

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Ileandra Young
August 6, 2012 at 7:58 pm

I haven’t read these books yet, though I must admit I would like to. I like to see why people make a fuss over certain books (Harry Potter) and decide for myself if I love (A Game Of Thrones) or hate (Fifty Shades Trilogy) them.
I’ve no idea where The Hunger Games is going to fall but I look forward to finding out.
Though from what I’ve already heard and from this blog gratuitous violence without consequence is already a turn off.

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