Eragon and Hunger Games, making headlines

It's been a big week for young adult fiction. First, there was the much-anticipated release of the trailer of "The Hunger Games" on "Good Morning America" earlier this week. In case you still haven't seen it, you can watch it here. We'll wait!

There's a lot of debate among fans of the books whether the movie will be as good. THe main thing I hope is that they don't water down Katniss. It still makes me angry that they excluded Hermione's hero scene from the "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" film, where she solves the logic puzzle and figures out which flask Harry needs to drink in order to proceed. I don't want them to turn one of contemporary literature's most badass female characters into a wimp. I didn't see Jennifer Lawrence (who plays Katniss) in "X-Men: First Class," but I did see her in "Winter's Bone," and she was great.

I had long held out hope that they'd cast Robert Downey Jr. as Haymitch. I've adored him in everything I've seen him in, from "Iron Man" to "The Soloist," and I still think he would have been awesome, but Woody Harrelson will also be good. I didn't know that Lenny Kravitz acted, but he definitely looks like how I imagined Cinna. I had heard of Donald Sutherland, who plays President Snow, but couldn't recall what he'd been in. So I looked him up on iMDB, and was pretty blown away by the wide variety of roles he's had in his lifetime. He should be a good President Snow as well.

The timing of the film's opening concerns me a bit. It's due to open March 23, 2012, and that's usually the time of year they reserve for bottom-shelf releases. Gross-out comedies with no-name actors, romantic comedies rejected from Lifetime Movie Network on the grounds of excessive sappiness, small-budget action films that might as well be titled "Shit Blows Up Near Boobs"...and rotten adaptions of less-popular books and graphic novels. "Hunger Games" doesn't fall into that category, though. It topped bestseller lists and garnered many accolades and awards. Google-search "The Hunger Games," and 142 million results will appear. People will definitely be watching this film.

Also, the final installment of the "Eragon" series by Christopher Paolini hit stores last week. The series was initially supposed to be a trilogy, but Paolini had so much left over, he created a fouth book. The new book is called "Inheritance." I know very little about it, as I read only the first book in this series. The series has many, many fans, though (including Mr. Library Diva!) and I know they've been anxiously awaiting this book for several years. If anyone out there has read it, I'm interested in your thoughts!

Hunger Games teaser trailer

The full trailer is supposed to debut during Good Morning, America tomorrow.


"May the odds be ever in your favor."

Trilogy complete, mind blown, spoliers within

After I wrote the last post, I ran out and bought the other two books. I returned home at 10:30 p.m. and started reading "Catching Fire." By morning, I was into "Mockingjay". By Sunday night, it was all over...and it took me this long to be able to articulate more than "wow...fucking amazing."

I'd wondered where the series would go after the first book. I wouldn't have really said it ended on a cliffhanger. Katniss won the Hunger Games, when the Gamemakers sadistically forced her and her District 12 partner Peeta into an alliance, then shattered it at the last minute by renegging on their promise to declare co-victors. Katniss and Peeta were ready to kill themselves when the Gamemaker frantically ordered them to spit out the poison, they could be co-victors after all.

Well, it turns out that didn't sit well. You're not supposed to beat the Games, you're supposed to beat the other competitors. Katniss winning in the way she did was the worst possible thing for the Capitol. It gave hope to the districts, and the Hunger Games are designed to quell hope. The next two books deal with the fallout from her subversive victory.

My sister teaches this book to her classes sometimes, and she said on her blog post that one of the main things about it that students always notice is how violent the books are. Every death means something, there's no gratuitous violence here. Either the deaths happen offstage, or they happen as you stare into the eyes of someone with a name, a family, a backstory as they take a spear to the core or melt or get attacked by a monkey. It's enough to make you wish for some gratuitous violence, actually.

The books don't make you feel like a horrible person for enjoying them, however, because they really do make you think. It made me think a great deal about what life under a totalitarian society would be like. As the trilogy wears on and the rebellion's spread, it becomes clear that no one's safe. Members of the victor's prep teams (Capitol citizens all, at the top of society) are murdered. When the rebellion reaches the Capitol, their society disintegrates. The poor citizens of Katniss' home District 12 don't escape notice either.

Being a victor won't even guarantee anything: win in the wrong way, like Katniss' mentor Haymitch, and they kill your whole family. Have the misfortune to be attractive, like Finnick, and you become a sex slave, a reward for good behavior, and if you refuse, they kill your family. And there's the psychological fallout that leads many down a path of addiction and insanity.

I also thought it was clever how the characters keep shifting. When you first meet Haymitch, the only other victor in history from Katniss' district, he's sort of a pathetic and laughable character, showing up an hour late to dinner and puking all over their prim escort because he's drunk. Get to know him, though, and he's clever and tough. The aforementioned Finnick is a flirty, sexy career tribute at first. After a while, he's revealed for who he really is: a loyal guy, in love with a badly damaged girl from home, who screws everyone they tell him to in order to protect her. Beetee transforms from an older, burnt-out Victor to a wily hacker, indispensible to the revolution.

I'm not sure how much my sister liked Katniss at the end of the books. I still liked her a great deal. I still feel she's an excellent female role model with many, many fine qualities, even if she is guilty of selfishness. Her two love interests, I'm less sure of. Peeta is the only character who really doesn't change. He's still the boy next door, goodhearted and in love with Katniss, the same boy you meet on the train to the Capitol as a scared tribute. Gale hardens, although you know him less intimately at first. Once he hears of the rebellion, he's all about it. He has no problem sacrificing ohter people's lives for it, either. I thought the resolution of the 'love triangle' was a bit of a cop-out, although at least no one died.

If you made it this far, you've probably already read the books, so I'd like to know, what did you think of them?