The End, and Afterthoughts: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Trigger Warnings: Death, Teenagers Dying, Dystopias, Sexism

I'm still new to the Trigger Warning system, so if I've missed anything out, please say.

Preamble:

I've written the first two thirds of the somewhat epic-lengthed Hunger Games sprawl (I'm hesitating at the term review) more or less blind, with little reference to few secondary sources (as say in my line work work), but that's probably going to change. There's a single-page interview with Collins at the end of The Hunger Games and I'm likely going to start seeking other commentaries out, so I suspect when I swing around to Catching Fire, I'll be linking all over the place.

Again, I want to emphacise I do this because it's what I do. I genuinely enjoyed The Hunger Games and I do recommend you seek it out.

Partly because of Christmas, I've been thinking about the books I throw yearly at the small children (some of them now teens) in my extended family. One of girls has succumbed to the scourge that is Twilight and I've starting thinking about books, especially books I'm planning to make the younger generation read, in terms of what I want to tell them. I don't just want them to uncritically reflect the world as is, I want the books to inspire. More than anything, I don't want them to help undo the problematic assumptions the we make instead of reenforcing them. Maybe I'm wanting to much, but I'm looking back at the books I read when I was younger, the books that taught me and made me who I am. I'll probably write more about them individually and perhaps even revisit them on the blog.*

But I just want to say that I'm going through that right now, so I'm probably holding books (especially given it being a Young Adult book) to a rather high standard at the moment. That said, I do believe "it's a children's book" a very poor excuse for plot holes or simplisitic world view, especially when we've created Young Adult, which is supposed to have maturity and complexity. It is certainly sold as that when it comes to more "adult" themes of raciness.

But anyway, onwards.

Before the End: The Hunger Games

Trigger Warning: Violence, Death of Parent, Depression, Death of Children
I've purposefully omitted direct reference to very dark bits of the book, Battle Royale (most of it in backstories of specific characters), but for those intending to read it, be warned.

(Also, am new to the trigger warning system, so sorry if I've left out anything. Do tell me in the comments.)


Preamble:
I'm just about to start Part III: The Victor, and things have certainly heated up. I really do recommend The Hunger Games. It has been absolutely thrilling, the well-paced and supsenseful prose carries you through and Katniss is simply an awesome character. The Hunger Games is fascinating as book and there are intriguing details all over the place (though not all of them well thought out). There are a few problematic aspects and various things that sit uncomfortably in my mind, but that is what is blog is for.

So onwards.

Other Things Wot I Wrote

I was and still am responsible for the blog, Lord Sin's Loinfire Club (Trigger Warning: Rape, like really) which deconstructs romance novels as well as write ups of our sessions playing a version of Mrs Giggles' romance novel drinking game (sadly, I can no longer find the rules on her website). Time and tide have parted the club and we haven't had the opportunity to meet up and (for the good of our livers) drink over silly books. But I still like deconstructing things and keeping a blog for my job as someone who sells costumes, has reignited my urge to write up my rants online.

So here I am.

Just quickly, a run down of posts I've been particularly fond of on the old site:

• The Great Grand List: where I talk about what I wish to see more of in romance novels
• Partial Review of The Darkest Kiss: does what it says on the tin
• The Anthropologist Reads A Hunger Like No Other: the romance novel with actual rape in it; it's deeply unpleasant and allegedly "romantic"
• Our Review of Twilight: does what it says on the tin
• Dubious Metaphor Proved Possible: pebbled nipples!
• Cult of the Butcher God: an exercise in mocking the world building of Eragon, by Christopher Paolini
• Beauty and Freedom and Angry Rant (on unfeminist retellings): two posts, each on a specific aspect of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Arthurian romance novel, Knight of Darkness

There are, of course, also all the drinking session recaps. If you like MST, it may well amuse you.

Pedantry: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Trigger Warnings: Starvation
(Also, am new to the trigger warning system, so sorry if I've left out anything. Do tell me in the comments.)

I'm segregating the really pointlessly pedantic remarks of the book in their own posts so the main ones don't get even more rambly than they are already. So here it is:

First Fifty Pages: The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

Trigger Warning: Violence, (no great detail). Corporal Punishment. Death of Parent. Depression.
(Also, am new to the trigger warning system, so sorry if I've left out anything. Do tell me in the comments.)


Preamble:
I confess that I am hugely fond of Battle Royale, both the film (2000, written by Kenta Fukasaku) and the book (by Koushun Takami, translated by Yuji Oniki), so my first response to the Hunger Games was that it was an Americans make on a very similar idea. Admittedly, games in which contestants fight to the death for a bloodthirsty audience is a trope as old as Rome (and for children being tribute, older, with Theseus' tale the obvious point of comparison, itself being Collins' stated inspiration), so it's not that I would frown on the idea of a fresh take on the subject.

Given my fondness and admiration for Battle Royale, I was reluctant to pick up the Hunger Games. I wasn't sure if Collins could really bring more to the table when it came to psychological insight into how a dictatorial regime could control its population through creating a world of fear and suspicion. The thing is, once I caught myself being dismissive of the Hunger Games, I was more or less honour bound to read them.

So that all said, I'm probably not the most neutral observer on the planet. Do bear that in mind.

First Posts

I don't like first posts. They feel rather too momentous. So I'm going to keep this simple: This is a new blog and I'm going to write about books and other forms of storytelling media. There may or may not be spillover from my other blog The Costume Mercenary where I write about costumes and my life selling them.

That is all.