Friday 23 March 2012

Friday Pondering - Hunger Games

I've been internalising a really complicated situation in my head...*

And I've come to the conclusion that I need all you guys to help me make the decision. Because who else would know the answer to this question better than you?

Should I read The Hunger Games?

Okay before you all shout out "YES - Why are you asking such a stupid question?" let me put this into some context.

Firstly I don't read YA. It's certainly not my chosen genre as some of you may know from the books I review. I prefer meaty chunky novels, something you can sink your teeth into (with the odd chick-lit thrown in to break up the monotony). I can count on one hand the amount of YA books I've read (okay two if you count each Harry Potter book separately) and can honestly say I only liked half of them. Overall they just don't interest me.

Secondly I didn't like Twilight. I didn't hate it in one of those - I refuse to watch this and buy into the hype kind of way - I just genuinely didn't like the book. The movies were coming out and there was a lot of talk about it and one of my good friends actually really liked it so I decided to read the first book. I read the whole thing and got to the end and thought - Meh! I didn't think the writing was great, the story was boring and the whole love triangle thing drove me mad. I watched the movie on dvd just in case I missed something in my interpretation of the book but I wasn't. Nope I found the movie boring too. So I didn't bother with the rest of the series. After that I'm now pretty cautious about reading another over-hyped YA book.

And finally the story itself doesn't really appeal to me. The idea of a bunch of teenagers thrown into an arena to fight to the death just doesn't sit well with me. And if that's the main story plot then I'm worried. But if it leans a lot more heavily to more interesting dystopian undertones and themes then maybe it's worth a shot.

So now you've got the full story please Help. What do you think I should do? Should I read it?



* Sorry bit of a kiwi reference there - if you're not smiling to yourself then here's the link :)