Battle Royale Done Right: A Review of the "Hunger Games" Trilogy

For whatever reason, when Suzanne Collins was gaining national renown for her series "The Hunger Games," I somehow managed to remain completely oblivious and avoid hearing anything about it. Skill, I guess? In fact, I don't think I consciously remembering hearing anything at all till a couple months ago where I heard it was a really good series. I put it out of mind for a while, but then I got  B&N gift card that I decided to spend on two books I knew I wanted (new Discworld and Gaunt's Ghosts :-D) and found myself with $5 unspent. After browsing for quite some time trying to find a cheap book that sounded interesting, I ended up grabbing "The Hunger Games," as in the first book, and decided to wait on picking up the others in the event it was at least half way decent.

The most impressive part of my ignorance, however, was that after reading both the online description and the back cover, it wasn't till months later when I actually started reading the book that it finally hit me what the novel was truly about: a group of teenagers killing each other in an arena. Sound familiar?

Ya, that was my first reaction too: "Did I just accidentally buy American Battle Royale?" To clarify, I'm vaguely familiar the Japanese franchise, and my most direct exposure was watching almost all of the live-action adaptation. Now, I don't know how that particular version is regarded compared to the others, but I absolutely did not like the movie. I held it only a couple steps above movies like Final Destination, which is perhaps my least favorite movie ever. Movies mostly about pure violence and death without any other true meaning are not something I usually joy (in retrospect this probably helps explain my dislike for horror/slasher films). Thus, while I wasn't going to just throw Hunger Games away and not read it, I suddenly was a lot more weary than I would have been.

As the title of this post hints (both the first and second part, actually), fortunately that was not the case. The entire trilogy turned out to be a very solid read, and something I ended up enjoying much more than I would have expected.

However, I realize I very rarely give synopses for the things I read and watch, and since I was so ignorant I feel perhaps it would behoove me to provide. The trilogy tells the tale of Katniss Eversteen, who lives in the post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in the ruins of North America. Decades ago the Districits of Panem (of which there are 12) revolted but were eventually subdued. To keep the Districts in line, the Capitol holds an annual Hunger Games, where one male and one female teenager from each district is semi-randomly selected to fight. The winner gains renown, unlimited food and privilege for his/herself and family, as well as benefits for their district for the next year. Everyone who's not the winner dies, either at the hands of other contestants or to one of the fiendishly designed bio-traps within the arena (Aaron, take note: one contestant is killed by bio-engineered, super aggressive bees who cause their victims to die in horrendous, psychedelic nightmares caused by their venom. Not even joking).

As you would suspect from the title, Katniss is drawn into these games, and the first half is her life and preparing for the games, whereas the second part is the game itself. The rest, including the details of the second two books, I won't touch due to fears of spoilers, but as you can imagine it deals with the ramifications of such a system and government.

Regarding the setting, it's quite interesting mild sci-fi. It's obviously in the future, since things like hovercards and genetically-altered animals and plants are common. However, the Capitol keeps most of the fancy toys to itself, so life in the Districts is often at a much lower level: Katniss' father works in a coal mine, and she hunts with a bow and arrow to keep her family fed. This mix of old and new tech is very well done and believable.

The characters are also well fleshed out and interesting. I will say the first-person narration from Katniss' PoV was surprising at first, since it had been some time since I read a first-person narration, but it flowed decently well (although I don't think it's the best first-person story I've read). You can tell Suzanna Collins is putting a lot of thought in choosing the narration style, though, since Katniss' bias and thought processes definitely shine through in how she perceives people, places, and events.

Perhaps most important, however, is the story itself. It's quite interesting and presents a decent amount of unexpected developments and turns, and handles them deftly and smoothly. I think a couple times I expected things to go worse than they actually did (I blame GRRM) and although I definitely called a couple of "twists," the books still managed to surprise me in some ways. And of course, the battle itself. The main reason it's tolerable and not annoying is that the vast majority of the deaths happen "off-screen," since Katniss herself is responsible for very few of them. Her main goal is to avoid other people and find food and water, and she is mostly successful in this. The few deaths we do see are not cold, heartless killings, and done in self-preservation/self-defense for the most part rather than psychotic aggression. Overall, because of the narration style, we get a very intimate feel for the emotions and aftermath of such a horrendous act. It's this touch of humanity and scale that really differentiates the material from Battle Royale, and while that although superficially the two bear a lot of resemblance, they are very very different from one another.

The biggest problem I have, and one that I've had with other similar works (Harry Potter probably being the biggest exception) is the 'young adult' aspect of the novels. While it doesn't stop the books from being surprisingly graphic and detailed in some respects, in others it feels to me that Collins wants to expand more on some ideas, or going into something in more depth, but can't due to the YA labeling. The other big issue stemming from this is the length: I felt, especially for the ends of the last two novels, that Collins had a lot more to say and could have written a much longer novel, that because of the length limitations of a YA novel she simply couldn't. Parts felt kind of rushed (I think the worst offender was the second half of book 2) and I wished she could take a page from GRRM's book and just make a longer novel to get across everything she has to say. Even an extra 100 pages would have been supremely beneficial, I think.

Overall, though, The Hunger Games was a highly enjoyable set of novels, especially considering what kind of blind state I went into. The problems I did have were all mostly forgivable, and are more than made up by its strengths. It's an interesting sci-fi premise carried out successfully that straddles the line between 'adult' and 'YA' fiction (although those definitions are kind of vague). If you're interested in a semi-dystopian novel about a post-apocalyptic future where teens have to literally fight for their lives under an oppressive government, Hunger Games is definitely worth checking out.

-HTMC