Tag Archives: Coriolanus Snow

Literary Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Title: Mockingjay
Author: Suzanne Collins
Format: Audiobook

Mockingjay available summary:

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

One of the things that struck me here was just how attached Katniss has come towards Peeta… upset that Peeta was left behind in favor of her, how she couldn’t understand why she was the symbol of the revolution or why they simply couldn’t find anyone else.

What I have complained over and over again in regards to my not being able to connect with Katniss throughout the series… finally comes into fruition in the third book of the series. I find myself wanting what is best from her, wanting her to succeed to get everything she has ever wanted. At the same time I think this attributed to the fact that she has finally grown as a character as opposed to staying relatively the same throughout the series.

Who knew when President Snow posed to Katniss that she has to act like she was in love with Peeta to make President Snow believe they were in love that the consequence was that in the Capitol taking Peeta and using him against Katniss that she would have actually fallen for Peeta and not necessarily in the romantic scene but in a deep loving bond where she would want no harm to happen to him.

And this is the heart and the center of Mockingjay… what drives Katniss into the directions taken to the ultimate conclusion. And this is why that a part of me is pleasantly surprised that after finding myself drawn to the secondary character I am finally able to relate to Katniss and find her a character worth rooting for.
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Review: The Hunger Games on DVD

Ok… I’ll admit it, I’m a sap… I am a crazy sap particularly when it comes to things like watching Katniss cry over the death of Rue, or watching her care for Peeta or even at the top of the film when she goes for her little sister Prim when Prim’s name was picked from the dish and volunteers to be Tribute of District 12.

But I am getting way ahead of myself. If you have read my reviews for the first two books of the Hunger Games Trilogy (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire) then you know that I am way late in the game with this particular book series and that I was presently surprised at how much I enjoyed the series as a whole. Sure there were times when I felt that the series was a bit predictable and several moments felt forced, but for the most part it was a rather enjoyable series.

The same seems to happen here with the first movie adaptation of the series, I am way behind the times… however, when I finally got around to watching the movie I found that I am much more drawn to the movie version of Katniss than I was with the book version.

Let’s look at what I said about the book version of Katniss:

There were times when I wanted to scream at Katniss for being so damn strong, but then again understood as to why. For someone who had to grow up rather quickly and rather young in life, you can’t help but have a harden outlook on life. However, for some reason Katniss is almost too hardened to be relate-able in any way… and it is those few moments where she lets her guard down and does something straight from the heart that people latch onto and find themselves drawn to where Katniss finds her audience. I suppose by having those extremes in her personality, that is how her more “real” moments become more than special for the reader.

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Literary Review: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Title: Catching Fire
Author: Suzanne Collins
Format: Audiobook

The second book in the series we are re-introduced to Katniss and the world around her. She and Peeta have both made it out of The Hunger Games alive and relatively in one piece, but when Katniss admitted to Peeta that she didn’t really fall in love with him, she was just playing the game in an effort to keep the both of them alive. Except she is feeling a little broken hearted and the connection they felt while within the arena had virtually disappeared… at least according to Katniss.

We are introduced to the notion of the Quarter Quell… where every 25th Hunger Games there is a special twist that is added to the mix. During one Quarter Quell all the districts had to nominate the children to send into the Games, in another Quarter Quell all districts were expected to send double the tributes. In the third Quarter Quell all the tributes would be polled from the pool of previous living victors. In this case Katniss was automatically a part of the Quarter Quell and for the men it was between Haymitch and Peeta and as it would turn out, Peeta volunteered for the Quarter Quell.
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Literary Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Title: The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Format: Audiobook

So I finally got around to finishing out the trilogy that every one has been talking about for years. Yes I am that behind.

Unfortunately one of the things that kept me from reading / listening to the trilogy earlier was that a lot of the premise reminded me a lot of Battle Royale that was created back in 1999 with a movie adaptation in 2000.

I enjoyed Battle Royale despite the insane amount of blood, violence and sex… because the provocative storyline is something that I could see would happen in the not so distant future (which was the setting of the story in general).

Available summary of Battle Royale (from Amazon.com):

In an alternative future Japan, junior high students are forced to fight to the death! Koushun Takami’s notorious high-octane thriller is based on an irresistible premise: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan — where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller — Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world. Made into a controversial hit movie of the same name, Battle Royale is already a contemporary Japanese pulp classic.

A bit too close to that of the “present time” as opposed to The Hunger Games where the setting was post-current Earth. It would appear that a World War III of some sort occurred and now everyone is left in a very authoritarian world. In fact it was rumored that Albert Einstein once said:

I do not know with what kinds of weapons the Third World War will be fought, but the Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones.

Yeah, no kidding. In any case, to the fantasy / science-fiction mind a premise of using children as play pieces in a game / fight to the death is not a new premise. In fact this has been the kind of story from ancient times most typically:
– Gladiator style in ancient Roman times
– the mythology of the Minotaur where fourteen young sacrifices were given to please the monster in a massive maze

So it is rather believable that two authors could have come up with rather similar premises to create their stories. After a significant amount of time as passed I finally decided to listen to the audiobooks more out of curiosity than anything else.
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