Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Either Katniss is a perpetual liar/unreliable narrator, or lobotomies were free for most characters. #1. The hungry ignore how she gets food. Katniss says she's one of few who hunt--the rest haven't learnt archery or spear-throwing or fishing. They aren't desperate enough to creep outside the fence, where it's brimming with food and life. "Roots to dig, greens to gather, fish..." And even a strawberry patch! If Katniss' father--a regular coal miner--became a good hunter, why didn't the starving masses copy him? #2. Katniss' dad would've made them rich. The food he'd fetched would have made him a lot wealthier than a miner, so WHY was he still mining, instead of hunting full-time? #3. Hunger doesn't drive these people to boldness? "Even though trespassing in the woods is illegal and carries the severest of penalties, more people would risk it if they had weapons. But most are not bold enough to venture out with just a knife." (Pg 6). But the Peacekeepers "protect" successful hunters instead of punishing (shooting) them, and Prehistoric men turned sharpened sticks into spears to hunt and defend against sabre-tooth tigers! Desperate people would hunt like this to feed their children, or even with pitchforks. It's 74 years since the Games started, and hunting/gathering outside is STILL rare? #4. Animals (meat) are safe inside D12? Katniss tells us there's a lot of livestock INSIDE District 12 and that all are apparently safe from being stolen and roasted. Pigs (Peeta's), goats (Prim's & Goat Man's herd), cattle (the soup lady will tell the Peacemakers her soup is beef), horses (to pull the wagons), sheep (Katniss trades for wool), and enough leather for shoes, jackets, etc. Yep, starved coal miners and orderly teens limp past Prim's goat on their way home to their starving families every night and ignore it! #5. Everyone's a lawbreaker, but they're terrified of breaking the law? The reason Katniss gives for the above is that it's against the law to steal, the punishment being death, which would be scary if they weren't being killed slowly, anyway. And she *also* says, "...and who hasn't broken the law?" Whiplash! Which is it? 200 years ago in England, the poor knew they'd be sentenced to death or shipped to hard labour in Australia for being caught stealing bread or hunting on private property, but hunger twisted their arms. #6. Starving people don't make their own veggie gardens? Outside the fence are potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, turnips (roots), berry bushes, leafy green veg, herbs and strawberries, all growing hardily without human nurturing, so the seeds/cuttings are right there to cultivate from! Pg.34 has Peeta's yard with a "garden bed, not yet planted for the spring" and Pg.42 K's hungry mother grows herbs, so growing food is legal in D.12 and no one is persecuted in any way for it. Why isn't the whole of D12 swollen in greenery from these hardy crops? #7. Katniss is well-fed but hungry, poor but sells what everyone wants? She says she still goes to bed hungry at times, so hungry she's needed to put her name in the Hunger Games hat extra times every year for grain and oil. Yet she *also* says their goat (her "gold mine"!) provides so much milk for them to drink that they occasionally have enough left over to make cheese, and that she brings food, including meat, home on a daily basis (Pg.377). #8. Miners that keep the Capital running on coal are so hungry they can't mine? If the above is true, then miners go to bed even HUNGRIER than Katniss, every SINGLE night, thus they're seriously frail, endangering D.12's ability to dig coal for their overlords = the main theme is a PLOT HOLE! #9. The Capitol doesn't care about production? A place of technology and comfort, they use electricity (from coal) to maintain that lifestyle. Understandable. The other districts would also be heavy electricity users for their different productions, so coal would be in VERY high demand since no other fuel is being produced. Wouldn't PRODUCTION be the overlords supreme goal? Fear of the Capitol is a done-deal already, since all children must have their names in the hat for the Hunger Games. So the Capitol doesn't have to shoot itself in the foot by having workers who can barely walk in order to maintain control. #10. Miners with serious illnesses keep the Capitol running? Living mostly on grains and oil would mean these precious workers are severely deficient in Vit.C = scurvy (weakness, anemia, bleeding organs, heart disease), folic acid (anemia, irritability, memory problems, manic depression, bone fractures, low libido, fetal problems) and iron (fatigue, difficulty maintaining body temperature, decreased immune function, anemia). HOW ARE THEY REPRODUCING, let alone working? 11. Given the laws of supply and demand, Katniss would be wealthy. She is one of just a few who are selling the rarest and most desired product to eight thousand people (including the wealthier Peacekeepers) who are all desperate for her meat. However, she trades this commodity that's hundreds of times more valuable than the meat in our stores today, for shoelaces, wool, bread or salt. Lobotomy! Even the organs/heads/feet would fetch high prices! Her mother, being a supposed healer, should know that broth made from boiling fish-heads is an iodine-rich remedy for energy/illnesses, and boiled bones/hooves makes a gelatine and mineral rich broth that boosts the immune system, is an anti-inflammatory, a hormone regulator, and for skin and joint/tendon health. The people in D.12 would *greatly* need these remedies! #12. Where does she find the time? Every day, Katniss goes to school, hunts in the mountains, sells/trades her extra food in the Hob (where she "makes most of her money") and (I assume) guts and skins her kill for her mother to cook. #13. The overloads care about schooling the kids (up to 16, at least) they starve and deny futures to. The Capitol pay teachers and other staff while providing classrooms, "sports activities" (Pg.13), and "music assembly" (Pg.366) for children who could otherwise be mining. Poor kids as young as 4, in the Victorian era, were uneducated and mined coal under a MUCH less sinister government. "Somehow it all comes back to coal at school. Besides basic reading and maths, most of our instruction is coal related." Why do non-mining kids, like the Mayor's daughter & Peeta, have to know all about it? Why do future miners even need to know anything about coal that can't be taught on-the-job? Moreover, why do *they* need to be taught even basic reading and maths by their evil overlords? #14. Or ARE good futures produced from this schooling? Katniss lectures Prim about staying in school on page 42, as if it can improve Prim's future, as if it's a choice Prim has not to go. Yet this is supposed to be a place where mining coal is people's main avenue for income...after the age of 16/17. #14. Why didn't Katniss give Prim advice to help her life without her? "Prim, forget school that'll get your nowhere. Make and tend a big vegetable garden of berries, greens and roots. That'll be your carbs, so you don't need to enter the Hunger Games for grain rations! Mom, teach Prim reading and maths, and tend the garden with her. Gale, can you trap some baby rabbits for them to breed their own, easy meat in cages over grass?" (since no one would steal them). "With the money you get from selling extra food, buy more goats to sell milk and cheese, too." In fact, why weren't they doing all this all along? Why weren't others? Ah, those darned lobotomies! #15. Did I miss a law for dark haired, grey-eyed people to mine, or else? What about all the other jobs needed in D12? The majority of D.12 are supposed to be coal miners who get paid very little for their hard, dangerous work, yet there's plenty of other jobs they could do (and that would NEED doing! So...each new generation of coal miners choose not to be meat-hunters, bakers, butchers, teachers, prostitutes, pub staff, Moonshine producers, grave-diggers, police/peacekeepers, staff of the Mayor, fruit growers & dryers (raisins on Pg. 37), hide-tanners (all that leather), fabric producers & dyers (for pretty dresses, "pink" ribbons, trousers, blouses, babies' diapers, sanitary pads, etc--What do they make it from? Cotton? Hemp?), cotton/hemp farmers (unless these starving people can afford to import all that in), animal farmers (pigs, sheep, goats, cattle, horses), wagon builders (pg.48), clothes washers, wool spinners, makers/importers of school & office supplies (paper, pencils, chalk, text books?), herbalists/healers (Katniss' mother), soap or toothbrush producers, black-market businesses, carpenters, plumbers, electricity company workers, electricians, electric bulb & wire & switch manufacturers, steel workers (knives, fences, pots, ovens, nails, sewing needles), guards for herds of livestock?, shoe/boot-makers, garbage men (rubbish bin's emptied on Pg.34), etc, etc. #16. The Capitol called the games "HUNGER" yet they don't want any of the hungry to believe any of them are so hungry they actually die from hunger. HUH? Pg. 33: "Starvation is never the cause of death officially. It's always the flu, or exposure to pneumonia. But that fools no one." #17. Which district pumps oil? The amount of fuel to make and transport all these products of "industries" back and forth across the country means fuel needs are immense. They have hovercrafts, trucks, tractors and trains... I thought the trains, at least, must've been coal-produced-electric (given their high speeds), but then the train on page 540 stopped for "fuel"! Not even trains today do that (electric). Soooooooooo...? #18. THE WRITING. So many adverbs. So many cliches ("silent as a stone" + "fresh as a raindrop" + "chilled to the bone" + "shaking like a leaf"). So may dialogue tags. If it's just two people in a conversation, we know who's speaking after the first dialogue tag/action beat! This drove me nuts: "Yes, there's usually some," I say. "Katniss, it's just hunting. You're the best hunter I know," says Gale. "It's not just hunting. They're armed. They think," I say. "So do you. And you've had more practice. Real practice," he says. "You know how to kill." "Not people," I say. "How different can it be, really?" says Gale grimly. THE GOOD................................... Indeed, I thought there were a lot of good things in tHG, despite all the above. I really liked the author's prose and pacing. The "little duck" comments in the beginning with Prim were so cute and creative, I was drawn in right away. And the cat and her hating each other got my attention as well--very unique. I loved the creativity in how simply the author wrote, "Entrails. No hissing. It's the closest we'll come to love." These are what spurred me to click "buy now" ASAP. Loved having a strong female lead who wasn't bitchy or whinny! I think this confuses a lot of writers who aim for strong, but Katniss was created with talent. The rare trope/pairing of "Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy" made the read more interesting, and I think that, too, took talent to pull off. The characters of Gale and Prim were my favourites, and I got teary just reading the Kindle sample where Katniss substituted herself in Prim's place. After the sample is where it went down-hill for me--leaving district 12 and the characters I was most invested in. Personally, I would have found it a fascinating read without the Hunger Games, but rather a story of how they cope in District 12 (minus lobotomies!), how their survival progresses and how their relationships grow and are challenged in that interesting setting.