I recently read a trilogy of novels entitled “The Huger Games”.
Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Maybe not. Either way, these book are brilliant and magical and amazing and heartwarming and dramatic and they touch you in a way you didn’t realize novels could. I, personally, fell in love with the characters, the story, the writing style and even the author. These book are great.
They’re written as Young Adult novels, though, targeting the teens of today. A movie adaptation is currently in the works. The main character is a very strong, independent teenage girl. Said girl is eventually forced to choose between two strong men. Resulting from these factors is a concept that The Hunger Games is on par with that of The Twilight Saga.
This concept disgusts me.
The Hunger Games is tale of a strong, young woman who’s faced with a life or death ‘Game’ and very minor, very miniscule romantic interests. Twilight is a shit novel about a stand-still, young teenage girl whose main focus in life is to have sex with her Vampire boyfriend and somehow still manage to keep her Werewolf best friend. The two novels don’t even begin to touch on the same philosophies and ethical questions as the other. The Hunger Games offers a great message about society, politics and where we as a race are headed in the future. Twilight’s main focus’ are ‘Boyfriend=Good’ and that women aren’t as strong as the men they idolize romantically. It’s a degrading novel that embarrasses me to be female. The entire fandom of the series concentrates on which man Bella will choose in the end (even though it’s entirely obvious throughout the plot). While The Hunger Games does, in fact, have a romantic conflict for Katniss, our female protagonist, it is not, by any means, the focus of the story. As I read through these novels, my mind was determined to know whether or not Katniss would live to see the Capital fall or if they would take her down first - I wasn’t anxious for another kiss from Peeta or moment with Gale. Her relationship issues were so far back in my mind that I had forgotten it altogether until I learned of the end result. Team Peeta and Team Gale haven’t become ships publicized on the tee-shirts of Hot Topic or parodied on SNL.
The Hunger Games is a respectable YA trilogy that will be turned into an amazing movie (I’m sure of it) within the next few years. I can only pray that it doesn’t turn into a complete mockery that Twilight has always been.