Hungry for more?

Ridley Scott's Gladiator, Golding's Lord of the Flies, and Miss Universe wrapped into one. Such is the first book in the series for young adults by Suzanne Collins.

The novel is an easy read and I must admit that it's a good respite from the current hype of Vampires, Werewolves, Wizards, Witches, and Conspiracy Theories --all in the realm of the fantastic. Though I think this book is also turning into a hype on its own, it's still a good story to keep you awake in this rainy season, even while in your work trips.

There are hints of irony in the story, evident in the founding of the Games itself that aims to remind everyone in a fictional place named Panem about their survival from a brutal history. This reminder can only be done by the spectacle and glamour of sacrificing 24 lives of children every year, so that the rest will continue living while entertained by this sadistic game at the same time. What a perfect show.

I like the part when the mockingjays are serenading (or perhaps mourning) at a child's death, providing the background music in one of the better part of the story. It was fun with the tracker jacks stinging the players' a$$es to death, and the resulting hallucinations from their venom. I was horrified and at the same time thrilled by the Napalm-like attack, and I enjoyed the kids shooting, slicing, and cutting while trying to kill and outfox each other. I enjoyed Thresh smashing Clove's head with a piece of rock, and the mangled Cato begging Katniss for an instant death. I laughed at that part when the frantic Claudius finally announced the winners of the Game due to an apparent act of double suicide that symbolically slapped the Gamemakers' faces, and would have threatened to render the Game's outcome moot.

After reading the book, you realize that you're slightly hungry too. Hungry for more. If only a silvery parachute will fall from heaven carrying the next book of the series for me to devour, the same way the players cheat death by instant aids from their capitalistic sponsors.

I look forward to Katniss fulfilling her revenge to the Gamemakers and the Capitol. As things will never be the same again at the return of Katniss to District 12 by the end of the book, I can say that she's hungry for revenge. In the final book of the series, we might see an arrow puncturing the skull of President Snow. Violent? Nothing is more brutal in this book, and probably for the whole series too.


some hungry passages:

Rue's death has forced me to confront my own fury against the cruelty, the injustice they inflict upon us. But here, even more strongly than at home, I feel my impotence. There's no way to take revenge on the Capitol. Is there?

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Katniss Everdeen. A girl who lives in the Seam. Hunts in the woods. Trades in the Hob. I stare in the mirror as I try to remember who I am and who I am not. By the time I join the others, the pressure of Peeta's arm around my shoulders feels alien.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 tracker jacks
Genre: YA, Dystopia