Young Writers Society

This series sounds like it's trying too hard to be edgy. Every teenage girl loves it, and that sends a warning signal to my brain. I think: What was the last series teenage girls loved?

Oh. Yeah. That series.

I remain skeptical.

Prokaryote, it's like apples and okra.

Twilight: Chronically depressed teen girl obsesses over equally obsessive, controlling vampiric boy and/or racially profiled werewolf boy. More depression and whining ensues.

Hunger Games: Teen girl sacrifices self for sister in televised gladiatorial slaughter against 23 other teens for the amusement of the wealthy elite. Genuine PTSD and political upheaval ensue.

Massively different.

I despise Twilight with every fiber of my being, and I love Hunger Games. It doesn't try to be edgy, it has real guts. It's a story about the effects of violence on young adults and a commentary on fluff and falsified media wrapped up in a solid package of story and great characterization that teen readers still find accessible. It's not gory, but the moments of violence are presented in the quick, understated fashion that reminds me of The Things They Carried, and even has all of the uncomfortable psychological aftermath. If teen girls obsess over this story, then that's a good, good thing. It's a far superior story for them to obsess over. I hope boys get in on it, too, because the world needs more boys like Peeta and Gale and more girls like Katniss, Rue, and Prim. Like I said though, if they don't see past the "Which boy?" factor (which is an extremely minor part of the story) they haven't really understood what they've just read and need to read it again in a year.

Psh. I already saw Battle Royale.

Oh. My. Gods. You mean a story has a premise that sounds a little bit similar to another story?! Come off it. It's like saying "I don't want to read Alastair Reynolds because I've seen Star Wars". They both happen in space and have spaceships so they must be the same!

Yes, the premise is similar, but it ends there. It's not the same characters, it's not the same plot, so how could it be the same story?

I disagree almost entirely with everything that has been said in this thread. The Hunger Games presents a sad indication of how easily readers acclimatise to airport fiction in their everyday lives. By airport fiction I mean books which are created – and read like they have been created – for consumption on a flight, ready to be discarded once they are no longer needed. An example of which is Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and, as I am presenting now, The Hunger Games.

While The Hunger Games is somehow compelling in that one does not want to put it down – one could almost liken it to a train wreck in this way – in most other areas it fails. Katniss is a blank and unpleasant character, particularly considering we are stuck in her self-absorbed brain. I would hazard to say that she is a typical teen in most regards, and I find the only thing believable about her is her selfishness in wanting to stay alive. She has little to no personality and I often found myself wondering why I had to be confined to her limited view of the world.
*Saves her sister – who she no doubt feels obligated to protect, but also love.
*Argues a lot about nothing really important.
*Is solitary and somewhat intimidating to everyone except her best friend and family.
*Has illegal hunting experience.
She is not pleasant or kind or nice, she isn’t particularly intelligent and she doesn’t do anything particularly stunning, other than shooting and trapping. She does stay alive, which is largely due to her not being a complete idiot and the favouritism of her sponsors. Added to which, she is clearly an attractive young woman, which Peeta alludes to several times, mentioning how other people look at her and such. It is important for our main character to be attractive, but not to be liked. Are we getting messages of judging the book by the cover? I feel it may be the wrong message here, if that is the case.

As for the other characters:
Peeta is a sweet, two dimensional character who surpasses Katniss in both interest and colour, and while he is somehow oblivious to Katniss’ stupidity when it comes to relationships, he is very likable. Gale is easily a non-entity, as is any of Katniss’ family, and Haymitch is a convincing drunk but has little else going for him. The best character so far is the stylist, whose quirks and gentle nature are realistic and engaging. Here I will also mention these strange servants – why can’t we know more about them?

In the end I feel I am left with a book which has no substance to it whatsoever. Despite political intrigue, romance, violence and action, this book falls short, and falls hard. Why did I stay up all night to read it? It certainly wasn’t the writing which kept me going – writing which many YWSers could surpass – and it wasn’t plot or characterisation. I did expect the novel to end entirely by the end of the book – why hadn’t the story finished? She hasn’t told me anything really and it doesn’t have to be as long as it is. Cut out the fake and fankly painful interior ruminations by Katniss and maybe there will be something salvageable.

I am disappointed, although not surprised, that these novels have become such a novelty among young writers. On the surface the book appears to be about a strong woman who fights to save her life while learning about herself and romantic relationships at the same time. This would easily entice readers, strong female characters are slurped up like warm soup by most readers and there appears to be easy confusion over quality. To claim that these books are a needed addition – to suggest that there are not a bevy of strong females in YA fiction – is to ignore many fantastic writers and their books. To mention some writers: John Marsden, Enid Blyton, Tamora Pierce, Alison Croggin. These books are not to be over looked! Particularly not for substandard fiction which does little for female characters on the whole, once you study the text closely.

I read the book, and I thought about it, and frankly, it isn’t worth the hype it’s getting – much like Twilight. I make the disclaimer here that I am only referring to the first book of the Hunger Games series and no others.

*Hearts* Le Penguin

PenguinAttack wrote:
While The Hunger Games is somehow compelling in that one does not want to put it down – one could almost liken it to a train wreck in this way – in most other areas it fails. Katniss is a blank and unpleasant character, particularly considering we are stuck in her self-absorbed brain. I would hazard to say that she is a typical teen in most regards, and I find the only thing believable about her is her selfishness in wanting to stay alive. She has little to no personality and I often found myself wondering why I had to be confined to her limited view of the world.
*Saves her sister – who she no doubt feels obligated to protect, but also love.
*Argues a lot about nothing really important.
*Is solitary and somewhat intimidating to everyone except her best friend and family.
*Has illegal hunting experience.
She is not pleasant or kind or nice, she isn’t particularly intelligent and she doesn’t do anything particularly stunning, other than shooting and trapping. She does stay alive, which is largely due to her not being a complete idiot and the favouritism of her sponsors. Added to which, she is clearly an attractive young woman, which Peeta alludes to several times, mentioning how other people look at her and such. It is important for our main character to be attractive, but not to be liked. Are we getting messages of judging the book by the cover? I feel it may be the wrong message here, if that is the case.

Which is exactly why I like her. She isn't nice, she isn't sweet, she isn't spectacular, nor does she claim to be. She's shortsighted, irrational, confined to her own view of the world.. Hey...that sounds eerily like a real person! Shortsighted, self absorbed, and irrational to everyone but themselves. She's a regular, expendable, everyday girl, not unusual in the slightest, thrust into an extraordinary situation not of her making. (*cough Hobbits!*cough*) Even the act that gets he noticed initially (shooting the Gamemaker table) was motivated by nothing more than her anger, and the act that makes her a political problem was nothing more than a moment of panic wrongly interpreted. That's miles better than the Mary Sue who is pretty, and self depricating, and charmingly clumsy and has super speshul hidden talentz /is the key to everything important while moaning over her lover's latest abandonment or the Prada sale and who's screwing who. Even later... Katniss is ordinary and does the amazing. This is a bad message? Why?

Where is it written that all heroines have to be pleasant, kind, nice, and honorable? She garners favor by her actions, not her (natural) looks, but her actions have unintended consequences. How is that a negative? Would you find her a stronger female if she never had a dark thought or despairing though, was always polite to everyone, lacked a survival instinct, and turned out to be the President's illegitimate daughter who could control nukes with her mind? Where exactly do you extrapolate that she saves her sister out of "obligation"? How is sacrificing oneself for a family member selfish? How is vowing to keep another alive at the expense of your own safety a selfish act?

As for the other characters:
Peeta is a sweet, two dimensional character who surpasses Katniss in both interest and colour, and while he is somehow oblivious to Katniss’ stupidity when it comes to relationships, he is very likable. Gale is easily a non-entity, as is any of Katniss’ family, and Haymitch is a convincing drunk but has little else going for him. The best character so far is the stylist, whose quirks and gentle nature are realistic and engaging. Here I will also mention these strange servants – why can’t we know more about them?

Katniss' non-obsession and disinterest in relationships (frankly for good reason) is a problem? After Twilight? After hordes of tweenies gushing over their ambition in life being to glue themselves to an abusive older male? Since it seems you've only read the first book, you've missed 2/3 of the character arcs.

In the end I feel I am left with a book which has no substance to it whatsoever. Despite political intrigue, romance, violence and action, this book falls short, and falls hard. Why did I stay up all night to read it? It certainly wasn’t the writing which kept me going – writing which many YWSers could surpass – and it wasn’t plot or characterisation. I did expect the novel to end entirely by the end of the book – why hadn’t the story finished? She hasn’t told me anything really and it doesn’t have to be as long as it is. Cut out the fake and fankly painful interior ruminations by Katniss and maybe there will be something salvageable.

The story hadn't finished because the story wasn't finished. It's that simple. True, it could have ended, "huzzah, happy day we both get to live and everything is good now even though we're still poverty stricken and starving!", but that's not an end. That's a return to the beginning stasis, not a new stasis.

The writing isn't on the level of Steinbeck, but who is these days? Most young writers write in a style quite similar to Collins', if not weaker. Perhaps if she had chosen third instead of first person narration? I'm personally not a huge fan of first person, but it serves this story thematically.

I am disappointed, although not surprised, that these novels have become such a novelty among young writers. On the surface the book appears to be about a strong woman who fights to save her life while learning about herself and romantic relationships at the same time. This would easily entice readers, strong female characters are slurped up like warm soup by most readers and there appears to be easy confusion over quality.

Sorry, but you missed something. Katniss learns neither about herself nor romantic relationships. She learns about dealing out death and playing the media and acquires mental trauma. If she learns anything about herself, it's how easily she's been manipulated by outside forces. The only romance in the first book is completely staged for the benefit of survival. Most of it in the second is completely staged. In the third, there is no room for it except as an afterthought. I saw a marked lack of romance compared to other recent YA heroines.

To claim that these books are a needed addition – to suggest that there are not a bevy of strong females in YA fiction – is to ignore many fantastic writers and their books. To mention some writers: John Marsden, Enid Blyton, Tamora Pierce, Alison Croggin. These books are not to be over looked! Particularly not for substandard fiction which does little for female characters on the whole, once you study the text closely.

Claiming that they're a needed addition does not automatically negate those that came before. YA fiction has been inundated with Sues and fashionista vampires lately, pushing deserving heroines off the shelves. We can always use more strong YA females. Most non-writer teens don't know about authors like the ones you mentioned, and something like this could lead them to those authors. If anything, Katniss is a resurgence of the heroines I read about as a teen, written by Tamora Pierce and Tanith Lee and some I don't remember. One of my favorite YA heroines is Kerowyn from Mercedes Lackey's By The Sword. She's not nice, pleasant, or strictly honorable. She sacrifices herself out of "obligation" to her family. She abandons the man she thinks she could love because she has duties elsewhere. She's headstrong and irrational. That's a strong heroine to me. What's one to you?

What damage does Katniss do to female characters as a whole? I'm not seeing it. The YA heroine was slaughtered with Bella Swan and her knock offs and the Gossip Girls and their knock offs. What exactly does an independent, humanly flawed character do to make this worse?

Firstly: I have read the first two books, but am unwilling to purchase the third book until it’s cheaper, at which point I’ll have read them all. I believe I made it clear in my post that I was only going to refer to the first book because the thread itself is about the first book alone. Now I will do much the same with as few references to the other books as I can manage.

Collin’s writing is poor, yes. The characterisation, dialogue and blocking are all poorly done and I will again liken her writing to airport fiction. Whether or not other writers right now are similarly deficient in this area is not the issue, I feel. When I come to those books I receive the same ill feeling of discontent – why can we not produce strong writing of a suitable level? That these poorly constructed novels are becoming a steady norm is not to justify Collin’s writing, or to explain that people feel it is amazing writing. If I am to debase the novel on this element alone, I would be entirely justified and the evidence to back me up is all there.

In regard to my expecting the story to have been finished by the end of the novel: The lack of substance led me to believe this. I didn’t expect it to be joyous and “happily ever after” or anything, I expected it to complete. Nothing really happens in this novel (Or the others, really) that couldn’t have been put into a longer but more condensed book – possibly two. Additionally, if a book ends with everything being as it was, it is still an end. Unhappy or unsatisfying endings are still endings. The saving of her sister was an obligation of sorts – she couldn’t have stood life without her little sister to make things okay. This is not to say she didn’t love her sister – as numerous references substantiate – but that saving her was something she had to do, regardless of what her feelings may have been. There are many ways of being selfish, and saving other people can certainly be so.

You mention Twilight many times without realising that the level of interest both female main characters have are the same. They’re both two dimensional and uninteresting; one finds that the other characters easily overshadow them. So what if Bella Swan is all about Edward, the book is marketed as a romance and it delivers on that, although poorly written (with the right filling and proper characterisation and such, this would not be a bad plotline, possibly). Katniss is all about survival, which makes sense considering where she is and the dangers she faces, but I should care about what happens to her. In this book I don’t care if she lives or dies, and I think that is a fatal flaw in the construction of your main heroine.

To assume that she does not learn about herself is to suggest you haven’t read between the lines. The girl is constantly learning about what she can and can’t do and what she is willing to do in the face of danger – such as killing another person. She develops an understanding of her relationships with other people (I mark the Gale-Peeta issues here). The romance between Peeta and Katniss is staged, yes, but the feelings are not. Can you truly ignore what is actually happening on the book as though you were a spectator of the show instead of reading her thoughts?

What does she do that is worse to other heroines? She is boring. Utterly so, there is no feeling in her thoughts and by the end of the book I am left wondering why I’m stuck in the mind of an unaffected individual. There is nothing wrong with a character being weak, pathetic, rude or distasteful, but if she is going to be my main character, I should at least like her as a character. I have liked plenty of terrible characters before (I would make reference here but the one which comes to mind most readily is by a YWSer who you may not have read) and I love having characters who I hate in novels, they make things interesting. Katniss is boring and I find no reason to really put her into my mind as a good, solid character.

In the end, though, it boils down to the fact that these books are poorly written. If they were stronger in this regard, most of my issues would disappear. I dislike the books, so far, and have little expectations for the final one.

I couldn't get 30 pages into Twilight before I loathed Bella (and the plot) to the extent that I had to stop reading. Katniss had my attention from page one and held it. I agree that the writing is simplistic, but to me that's not an immediate negative. The only aspect I don't agree with is the first person, and I do think the story would have been better served in third. That being said, I care about the characters because they act like people, not cardboard cutouts of people. I like Katniss. I want her to survive and I want to know how she handles what's thrown at her. She doesn't comment on the effects her situations have had on her, the effects just occur and she deals with them, which makes sense for who she is and how she was raised.

Why do teen readers like Bella Swan? They don't. They like her boys. Take away Jacob and Edward and what is Bella? She's nothing; she exists to be adored, and the boys define her. I like Katniss because she takes action and agency, and unlike Bella, she can and does exist as a character separate from Peeta and Gale. Her attachments to them don't define her, her own actions do.While her relationship with Peeta is an important part of the story, it's a relationship based on more than his "mysterious allure" or her "entrancing qualities". It's based on personality, mutual friendship, and soldiers' camaraderie of shared trauma. This treatment of romance as something more complex than an indefinable instant desire is one of the main reasons I enjoy the story.

Plus, there is some thematic backbone to the story that I really do appreciate. It covers the effects and perception of violence, materialism and media obsession, and delves into the misconception of absolutes in war. These are all strong ideas for the intended audience to think about.

Are they the best YA novels in existence? Of course not! Better ones do exist. To me they're a step in the right direction, away from things like Twilight, Inheritance, and other "sagas" that were pushed in an attempt to compete with Rowling or fill her market void. Young writers get inspired by what they read. When I was 12 and 13, I wrote plots and characters like I saw in Heralds of Valdemar and Circle of Magic. If Hunger Games and its popularity does nothing else but get new writers back into active heroines and adventure and out of Mary Sues and boy-based melodrama, I will be thrilled. If it leads them to seek similar stories and characters and exposes them to other authors and more complex stories like I think it very well could, I will be ecstatic.

Due to the cruel world, I'm removing this. I will respond to the below comment however so I don't look like an idiot myself. I don't recall saying the idea was original. I agree that it is not, it was pulled from The Colosseum, The Lord of the Flies, and many other things. Though let's not pretend that anything is original, it simply isn't. However, if we are talking originality, I do believe the way she went about the main idea was original.

-JRS

Guys, cool it. Absolutely no more flaming or I'll lock this.

It may be a good idea, JRS -- though that's debatable -- but let's not pretend it's in any way original.

I agree with everyone.

I haven't actually read them myself, but I know that several of my friends love them. I ought to get around to reading them soon they sound like my kind of thing.

I personally love The Hunger Games. I don't want to get into a big debate but I sure think Katniss Everdeen is a better fictional role model than Bella Swan. Just saying.

This is on my to-read list; I've heard so much about it and now (like I did with Twilight, though I hated it) I want to see what all the hype's about. It seems like everyone either loves it or hate it, but personally something about it sounds really...magnetic. Although I guess I can't have much opinion until I've actually read it.