Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games Trilogy

Read by Carolyn McCormick

Katniss’ cluelessness and stubbornness grated on my nerves, but I had to constantly remind myself that she was only 16 in that kind of world. But at the same time, she was selfish and that had nothing to do with her age. Her inability to allow people to cope with whatever in their own way but wanting to be allowed to deal with her issues in her own was disgusting. She wouldn’t let Gale or Peeta die, but was angry when they returned the favor.

One of the parts that really irked me was when she got upset that Gale kept things from her, but she turns around and does the same and then says that he can think whatever he wants to think after her night with Finnick (I just love his name). But she’s not telling him what’s going on, so he can only think what he wants. And then there’s her thing about owing people–all the checks and balances were tiresome. I don’t know how she could stand herself most of the time. She was bad at everything but hunting. She couldn’t connect with people, didn’t know how to forgive, never learned from her mistakes and usually expected everyone else to make things better. All of her decisions could be seen as the easy way out. But I don’t actually dislike her even though she’s hopeless and if it wasn’t for the people around her she would have been dead so early on.

I liked the character development throughout the three books and how no one truly changed. They were broken and mended many times over, but the core of each character remained. For me, that’s great, because if everyone has an awakening, then no one really does and you can’t really see the contrasts that mark their growth or evolution and it’s these things that make the changes significant. The only person’s mask that was really torn away was Finnick. Haymitch remained a drunk; the spark had left her eyes, but Effie was still Effie. Not everyone comes out better on the other side and not everyone needs to.

As I was writing this, I felt a bit hypocritical because I had a lot of the same complaints about Katniss that I had about Korra and I don’t like Korra all that much. I tried to figure out what the difference was and it seems that it’s a matter of Katniss’ reluctance to be involved in anything at all from the very beginning, but having her hand forced vs Korra’s arrogance and complete bastardization of the role of the Avatar and how she carelessly embraced her birthright. I’m not going to get into the whole ATLoK thing because I already did here (recently re-posted to salvage it from a shut down blog).

As for the narration, I think it was great and I liked McCormick’s accents and vocal affectations. The voices of Haymitch and the distressed Katniss were my favorites.

On the whole, it was a very good story with a lot of great elements that I don’t feel the need to talk about. Even now, I have no plans to see the films.

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