*NikkiBell*
Livin’ that DVC & AP life!
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2005
Hi All!
to the DIS Book Club Discussion Group. We will be reading:
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
to the DIS Book Club Discussion Group. We will be reading:
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