The Hunger Games

When people ask me for book recommendations, I usually have two responses.

If it's a girl looking for a epic romance story, then I will point her to The Bronze Horseman, by Paullina Simmons. A depressing, star-crossed lover story with a heroic leading man.

But if it's for anyone else remotely hip, then I say go for The Hunger Games. It's a YA book, but even the snobbiest of "literature" readers will enjoy this one. I read the first book about three years ago, when it was still relatively unknown. But suddenly, like the title of the third and final book in the trilogy Catching Fire, it gained a massive following. Unlike the comparisons between Harry Potter and Twilight, this trilogy is about an alternate universe where children are pitted against each other to fight to the death...all for reality TV. No magic or supernatural, just purely human violence My description doesn't do the book justice, so why don't you just go here.

So after three years, why am I still obsessing over it? Simply put, the blame falls onto the magic of movie hype. The film, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth (yes, Miley's boytoy) is going to be released next year, and pictures are floating around the web. Pictures of my beloved Peeta and Gale (Hutcherson and Hemsworth, respectively)...released to the public. But I don't know how I feel. The main boy character doesn't seem quite right (is he too buff? too rough? ) while the other guy is perfect. But I guess this is what always comes from movie adaptions. They can never truly capture the character you envisioned as you were fully immersed in this other world, and they can never live up to your imaginations.

Take Harry Potter. Huge fan of the books, and if you follow this blog you will remember the pictures from the HP amusement park.  But I only like the movies. Correction, I loved the movies up to 4...and then David Yates came along.  But the point I'm trying to make is that the book Harry Potter is a separate entity from movie Harry Potter. No, I don't imagine Daniel Radcliffe's stocky body as my Harry Potter, nor gross David Thewlis as Professor Lupin...aka McHottie. But when I watch the movies, I try to forget what my expectations are from the book and enjoy them as blockbuster films.

So I hope I can do this with Hunger Games, because this trilogy is so good that I sometimes obsess over it more than HP. Blasphemous, I know.