The DIS Book Club Discussion Group: Round 8 - The Hunger Games

*NikkiBell*

Livin’ that DVC & AP life!
Joined
Jun 27, 2005
Hi All!

:welcome: to the DIS Book Club Discussion Group. We will be reading:


hunger_games_book_cover_011.jpg


The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins

Over the next several weeks, we will read and share our thoughts on the novel in this thread. Anyone who is interested in joining us is welcome. You could be a first time poster or a regular visitor to the DIS. Either way, we'd love to have you!

Please check this post in the near future for updates including a reading schedule and any other goodies that may come our way.

See you soon!

Nikki


Novel Synopsis
from Official Website

Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives. In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death - televised for all of Panem to see.

Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

WINNING WILL MAKE YOU FAMOUS. LOSING MEANS CERTAIN DEATH.


Official Book Trailer

Are you ready for The Hunger Games? Click here to watch the official book trailer and find out more!


Read the First Chapter

You can read the first chapter of The Hunger Games here.


Listen to the First Chapter

Do you like to be read to? Listen to the first chapter of the novel here.


Additional Downloads (Desktop Wallpaper, Bookmark, etc.)

Looking to get in the spirit? Visit this site for desktop wallpaper for your PC and more!


Praise for The Hunger Games
Warning: Some spoilers are given...

"If you are looking for something to grip your kids after an orgy of Xbox, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is it... Plunge in because this is rip-roaring, bare-knuckle adventure of the best kind, and destined to be an even bigger hit than Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.... It would be giving away too much to describe all the twists this absorbing and morally challenging novel throws up, but it is a real humdinger that adults, too, would love. In the renewed debate about why boys aren't reading, The Hunger Games would be the perfect antidote - if only schools had the wit to choose it for a class reader." - The Times

"As negative Utopias go, Suzanne Collins has created a dilly. The United States is gone. North America has become Panem, a TV-dominated dictatorship run from a city called the Capitol. The rest of Panem is divided into 12 Districts (the former 13th had the bad judgment to revolt and no longer exists). The yearly highlight in this nightmare world is the Hunger Games, a bloodthirsty reality TV show in which 24 teenagers chosen by lottery - two from each District - fight each other in a desolate environment called the "arena." The winner gets a life of ease; the losers get death. The only "unspoken rule" is that you can't eat the dead contestants. Let's see the makers of the movie version try to get a PG-13 on this baby.

Our heroine is Katniss Everdeen (lame name, cool kid), a resident of District 12, which used to be Appalachia. She lives in a desperately poor mining community called the Seam, and when her little sister's name is chosen as one of the contestants in the upcoming Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to take her place. A gutsy decision, given the fact that District 12 hasn't produced a Hunger Games winner in 30 years or so, making them the Chicago Cubs of the postapocalypse world. Complicating her already desperate situation is her growing affection for the other District 12 contestant, a clueless baker's son named Peeta Mellark. Further complicating her situation is her sorta-crush on her 18-year-old hunting partner, Gale. Gale isn't clueless; Gale is smoldering. Says so right on page 14.

The love triangle is fairly standard teen-read stuff; what 16-year-old girl wouldn't like to have two interesting guys to choose from? The rest of The Hunger Games, however, is a violent, jarring speed--rap of a novel that generates nearly constant suspense and may also generate a fair amount of controversy. I couldn't stop reading, and once I got over the main character's name (Gale calls her Catnip - ugh), I got to like her a lot. And although "young adult novel" is a dumbbell term I put right up there with "jumbo shrimp" and "airline food" in the oxymoron sweepstakes, how many novels so categorized feature one character stung to death by monster wasps and another more or less eaten alive by mutant werewolves? I say more or less because Katniss, a bow-and-arrow Annie Oakley, puts the poor kid out of his misery before the werewolves can get to the prime cuts.

Collins is an efficient no-nonsense prose stylist with a pleasantly dry sense of humor. Reading The Hunger Games is as addictive (and as violently simple) as playing one of those shoot-it-if-it-moves videogames in the lobby of the local eightplex; you know it's not real, but you keep plugging in quarters anyway. Balancing off the efficiency are displays of authorial laziness that kids will accept more readily than adults. When Katniss needs burn cream or medicine for Peeta, whom she more or less babysits during the second half of the book, the stuff floats down from the sky on silver parachutes. And although the bloody action in the arena is televised by multiple cameras, Collins never mentions Katniss seeing one. Also, readers of Battle Royale (by Koushun Takami), The Running Man, or The Long Walk (those latter two by some guy named Bachman) will quickly realize they have visited these TV badlands before.

But since this is the first novel of a projected trilogy, it seems to me that the essential question is whether or not readers will care enough to stick around and find out what comes next for Katniss. I know I will. But then, I also have a habit of playing Time Crisis until all my quarters are gone." - Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly Online


"Suzanne Collins' plot rattles along with plenty of action and suspense. It's only a matter of time before the movie version follows." - News of the World


Reading Schedule

Obtain Copy of Book by June 30
Read through Part I - The Tributes by July 5
Read through Part II - The Games by July 9
Read through Part III - The Victor by July 12

(This schedule will be adjusted, if necessary, according to how quickly or slowly we absorb the text. Move at your own pace and enjoy it! Don't stress!)


Book Club Discussions

One of the best parts about the DIS Unplugged Book Club is that we can share ideas about our reading here online. In order to keep our discussions moving, I will post conversation starters about each section. Feel free to post a reply with your thoughts or other ideas you had while reading that relate to a topic of your own.

If you read ahead of the above schedule, please change the text color to white so you do not give away parts of the plot that the rest of us have not read. Remember, your participation in the discussion will make this a more rewarding experience. Post away! Don't feel as if you need to wait for me to bring up a topic to discuss it. This is your group and there isn't such a thing as a reply that is too little or too big!

Discussion Point #1 - Initial Impressions

Discussion Point #2 - Tributes & Stylists

Discussion Point #3 - The Cruelty of the Hunger Games

Discussion Point #4 - The Movie
 
:cool1: I just purchased it for my Nook. Not ready to start reading yet since I have two books that I'm working on right now, but this way I'm ready to go when the discussions all start. Plus, I'll avoid the price increase that could happen when we all start buying the book. :rotfl:
 


I just started reading this! I just hope I can keep up with you guys.

Sayhello
 
I have already read all 3 books, but I would love to discuss it. No spoilers, I promise.
 
I am hoping to pick it up tonight. I will be in the car for 24 hours between Friday and Monday and I am hoping to get some reading done!
 


I just bought it on my Kindle. I will start reading a little tonight. I'm also reading 2nd Chance so that will keep me from reading too far ahead.
 
Got the book last night. I am going to start reading it tomorrow! It looks like an easy enough read.
 
FYI, plan on dedicating a chunk of time to this book, as once you pick it up you won't want to put it down! Also, just go buy books 2 and 3 now 'cause you're gonna want to read them too!
 
FYI, plan on dedicating a chunk of time to this book, as once you pick it up you won't want to put it down! Also, just go buy books 2 and 3 now 'cause you're gonna want to read them too!

I guess my DH is going to have to drive all the way to MI tomorrow :rotfl2:
 
I just finished this book, but I can't wait to reread it with everyone!!
 
FYI, plan on dedicating a chunk of time to this book, as once you pick it up you won't want to put it down! Also, just go buy books 2 and 3 now 'cause you're gonna want to read them too!

This. I always tell people that once they get to page 100 or so, they just need to break all plans because you want to put it down. I also suggest if you do have to stop reading, stop in the middle of a chapter, because Collins ends her chapters with such amazing cliffhangers you have to keep reading to find out what happens next.
 
This. I always tell people that once they get to page 100 or so, they just need to break all plans because you want to put it down. I also suggest if you do have to stop reading, stop in the middle of a chapter, because Collins ends her chapters with such amazing cliffhangers you have to keep reading to find out what happens next.
Thanks for this! I'm doing a show next weekend, and was planning on reading while I'm not on stage. I *will* not open Hunger Games, because the last thing I need is to miss an entrance because I got engrossed in a book!!!! :scared1:

Sayhello
 
Ok, I already read two chapters last night. I'll stop there and wait. Good thing I have another book to read. :)
 
Update: I have posted a tentative reading schedule in the first post. Here we go!!!!! Let the games begin! :)
 
I'm away from home at the moment, but once I'm home I'll catch up on my reading. It'll be my second time reading THG, but my first since I've read the series through.

I have to say it took me a while to get into the book - the beginning is so exposition heavy, though necessary. I have to agree, you won't want to put it down and you will want to get books 2&3 ASAP.

The movie comes out March 23rd, 2012. Maybe we could do a GKTW fundraiser around that?
 
Ok, I read the first part of the book so I'll stop and wait for everyone. ;) Very interesting but I won't comment more than that so I don't spoil anything yet.
 
Just finished up Freedom, so I can now begin our selection...picked it up yesterday along with the other two in the trilogy as well as two Young Bond selections and The Eagle of the Ninth Chronicles for DS...didn't stop there due to a buy three get a fourth free deal, so I'm all set for The Discovery of Witches and Before I Go To Sleep whether or not they are next...thank goodness for a couple of giftcards to ease the bill!

Can't wait to get into The Hunger Games with all of you!
 

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