Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After getting recommendations from so many people that I lost count I decided to downloaded this book and I have to say I hate the people who recommended it to me. I am aghast the praise these books are getting. The story has a weird pace where nothing happens for dozens of pages and then within a few paragraphs all is said and done. I attributed some of the lack of depth to the fact that this is young adult fiction but it just does not stack up against many of the books in the genre. There is little or no introspection, both from the author or any of the characters, they are petulant short sighted and whiny. (Spoiler?) Katniss goes from being horrified that she has to leave her family to maybe starve to "Oooh what a pretty dress" in the space of a few hours. She likes to sleep with Peeta but their relationship is purely platonic. Is it just me or does someone else find it hard to believe two teenagers don't really act that way. Both Peeta and Gale are perceptually in love with Katniss though its hard to see why, she is dull, manipulative and self-serving and obviously so. The rules of the games are arbitrary and seem like they were made up as the author went along to suit the particular plot device she wanted to use at that point. Maybe I am too used to Tolkien and Asminov where the integrity and consistency of the universe in which their books reside is more important than the current plot twist. Also I recently read the Game of Thrones series where the characters are multidimensional, introspective and actually change radically during the course of the story. I read this book and wept for more Starks and Lanisters. However even if you overlook all of the problems I have mentioned so far the writing of this book is abysmal. The use of first person for the whole book is annoying, over-use of dialog for trivial conversation and over use of adjectives makes it boring to read. The crude and forced revolutionary overtones are just painful to read and any social commentary about the current reality television fad is accidental. Its more a product of the reality TV era and if it is possible this book is even more shallow and crude that the reality television programs it seeks to provide commentary on.