The Hunger Games

[lord_george]

I'm not saying I could do any better. I still really enjoy the series and own all three books. I don't think that 2 creative writing courses in college would get me even close to qualified to write a book. My short stories are pretty crappy.

[Ed]

I liked the books, all three of them.  They aren't high literature but so what.  They are entertaining, have likeable characters and make the reader want to know how the bad guys get theirs in the end.  It is young adult literature so if you lack one of those criteria the books might not be for you.  I haven't seen the movie yet;  as I've commented elsewhere I find most movie treatments lacking.

I saw the movie very shortly after reading the books...

It was decent, but it would have been far, far better if they'd made it into a two-parter. The introductory scenes are dealt with far too quickly, so you never get the chance to build up a feeling for the community and resilience of the districts, and how monstrous the Games and the oppression are. Then when Katniss volunteers and the crowd give her their silent salute, you're kind of left going 'well, that was anticlimactic' when it could easily have been a standout moment - it would've given much more impact to the gesture after Rue's death, as well.

Similarly, the real horror of the Games themselves was mostly swept under the carpet - in the books, by the end of it Peeta's barely alive and loses his leg to a raging infection, but in the films they're both alive and fighting and relatively hale. There's just not much sense of the amount of time that passes, nor how difficult it's made for them.

That's basically the trend that runs throughout - the film had too much cut out of it to build up much momentum. For all that, it was well acted and entertaining. It just needed fleshing out a lot.