The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I just finished this raw lump of a book and believe the hype, it’s a real page-turner. Action-packed, gritty, violent – I’ve walked away from it feeling like I need a good old clean (any streams around so I can scrape the blood and dirt off me; wipe the horrid images from my mind?)

As always, I’m not gonna go into detail, google is your friend.

Now, what I really loved about this book was the idea itself. 12 kids thrown into a battle against each other, a modern Running Man… just awesome and damn it, why didn’t I think of it first? The main character, Katniss, is great, Kickass. Real strong. An inspiration. The little details Collins brings in of a future world – the creatures she invents, the dystopian nuances – work very well. The little ideas and surprises, and twists and turns here and there – awesome. It will make a fabulous film.

BUT (isn’t there always a ‘but’?) the use of present tense was a bit jarring. I actually like present tense but it got a bit ‘listy’. And you know how us writers are always told to ’show, don’t tell’, Collins does a helluva LOT of telling when showing a scene with actions and dialogue would’ve worked so much better. And though Katniss is strong, she turns into a pathetic doe-eyed thing when it comes to ‘acting out’ the love stuff. She’s also dispassionate too and it takes a while to warm to her. The start is very very slow – a lot of people would be turned off by the first few pages where, literally, hardly anything happens. There were moments of great writing (as in, beautiful to read) but these were sparse. The writing was as gritty and tough as the subject-matter.

But really enjoyed this book and a definite must-read for aspiring YA writers purely because of the massive hype around it.