"Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favour!" (Effie Trinket)
It's my second time reading The Hunger Games and I'm still left with a hollow feeling... What an emotionally draining read!
Katniss Everdeen is one of my favourite protagonists. She's brave, cunning and loyal and she'll do anything for the people she loves. She's also manipulative, defiant, unforgiving, anti-social and she doesn't deal with emotions very well. The layers of her personality are slowly revealed with every challenge that she encounters and she's such a complex character.
My older sister is my second mother and best friend and Katniss's love for her little sister Prim is one of the many reasons why I love her so much. Katniss's love for Prim is so evident. She's always thinking about Prim and her kindest, happiest and most sincere moments involve her sister. One of the saddest moments in The Hunger Games is Rue death and because Rue reminds Katniss of Prim, Katniss draws a parallel between Rue's death and the thought of her sister dying.
The District 12 team consists of multidimensional characters. There's Peeta who's extremely interesting and likeable. While I still can't fully grasp Peeta's personality, he's brave, kind and peaceful, but he lies so easily and his humour is self-deprecating. Haymitch seems like an uncaring alcoholic at the beginning of The Hunger Games, but he becomes such an important character. Effie's eccentricity and obsession with appearance and manners bring some lighthearted moments to a serious read. I also love Cinna and his incredible designs!
The love triangle in The Hunger Games is well done. Katniss is more focused on surviving the Hunger Games, she's not looking for romance and her feelings about Gale and Peeta are so muddled. Gale doesn't have a large role to play in The Hunger Games, but I'm definitely on Team Peeta, mostly because he's been crushing on Katniss from the moment he saw her, partly because his personality seems to bring out the best in Katniss and vice versa.
The most interesting part of The Hunger Games are the concepts and themes that the dystopian world of Panem is built on. Witnessing children being forced to murder each other on live television is brutal and shocking. There are so many contrasts: extreme wealth in the Capitol alongside extreme poverty in District 12, a world that's so futuristic and primitive at the same time and death that serves to entertain and threaten.
The Hunger Games is sad, horrifying and utterly depressing, but it's those aspects that make the moments of kindness, heart, humanity and hope so special.
"I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun. (Katniss Everdeen)