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Kayla is Currently Reading

Kayla is currently reading

The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1)

by Suzanne Collins

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading for the 2nd time

read in August 2024

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Kayla said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

" 4.5 rounding up to 5; need to add detailed thoughts later. really reflecting how beauty was used throughout the book to convey different things.

After rereading this, I have a lot of thoughts and a lot more I noticed and appreciated this time around. 4.5 rounding up to 5; need to add detailed thoughts later. really reflecting how beauty was used throughout the book to convey different things.

After rereading this, I have a lot of thoughts and a lot more I noticed and appreciated this time around. One thread I keep coming back to is how beauty affects Katniss and how it is represented throughout the book. Katniss plays that she doesn't care for beauty and often implies it's frivolous and superficial, but she does in fact have a soft spot for beauty. The key to it is if its a natural beauty or unnatural. The Capitol and its inhabitants trail into an uncanny valley space with the modifications they inflict on themselves (and the greater society) and it horrifies Katniss. The Capitol is technically pushed as the societal ideal, but she doesn't buy in the way others do. She is actually rather disgusted by it. But when Katniss talks about her father, she mentions how the birds stopped to listen to him sing. She talks about the woods with care and appreciation. When she talks about Prim there is an appeal to beauty. She buries Rue in flowers. She sees Rue in everything beautiful after.
It's not that Katniss actually hates beauty, she hates vanity and the unnatural presentation she is fed by those with power. Along with this, the whisperings of beauty remind me of the call for "Bread and roses, too" by various political groups throughout the 20th century and beyond. This book setting the stage for what to come politically for the people of Panem feels all the more radical when taking in the reflection of beauty spaced throughout and the bread sent to Katniss during the games by District 11. This also connects to my thoughts about Katniss coming to understand Peeta's comment that he wants to be more than a pawn in the game. When he first made this remark, she couldn't grasp it, but I think that she just didn't know how to verbalize it. Katniss has never let herself truly be a pawn, partly because District 12 has some lax Peacemakers, but also because that is just who she is. She never needed to verbalize it, and quite frankly I don't think she even gave it much thought, she just did it. She did it when she volunteered, when she went into the woods, when she traded, even as she got to the Capitol before the games she was defiant in ways that could be played off (such as the training incident). She doesn't understand what Peeta means until her actions are deliberate, like the flowers for Rue.
I also cannot stop thinking about Rue and her death and everything that could be associated with it. The Games generally are appalling and inhumane, but this makes it so much more visceral and really shows how desensitized many are in Panem with how they actually look forward to the Games and find it entertaining to see children die. Along with that, if there is anything in this book connects to the call for bread and roses it is her death. Rue is the bread and the roses. She helps Katniss learn more food and things necessary for survival, but she is also beautiful and lovely. She remains in the beauty of the world for Katniss evermore. And she remains the bread that was sent. I think it also shows how Districts are slowly boiling over towards rebellion. Rue notes it and helps Katniss gain an understanding of the suffering elsewhere and how desperation permeates District 11. Desperation often brings out the most extreme in people.
There is also so much solidarity that comes between Katniss and Rue, and later Thresh that connects District 12 and 11. Both districts are poor and mistreated by the Capitol/other districts. They see almost all their tributes die year after year because how can they compete with those that prepped their whole lives? Tresh's sparing of Katniss shows how far away District 11 is from the Capitol and is arguably one of the most direct messages of rebellion in this book. Thresh and Katniss both go against the Capitol, but Katniss mostly stumbles into that while trying to survive. Thresh knew that Katniss was one of his main competitors, but still spared her because of what she did for Rue, in direct opposition to the "spirit" of the Games. Katniss said it was about him not wanting to owe her, and that is probably true, but at the same rate- it shouldn't matter if he owed her when she needs to die for him to win. He sided with Katniss over the Capitol, even if only briefly. His anger over Rue's death also shows how Thresh knows it as an injustice, along with District 11 more generally.
It's also important to note how grieving a tribute that isn't a direct family member is itself defiance. The Games are meant to dehumanize and scare. To grieve is a recognition that there was a life lost, that there is something very real at stake. That it is not just entertainment. Katniss and Tresh recognizing that there is reason to grieve shows they have not been desensitized the way the priveledged had.
I feel like that was most of my main thoughts, and this is getting disorganized now, but I really enjoyed reading this. I think it just feels timely and I always have a soft spot for a character like Katniss that isolates themselves, but still acts with justice. ...more "

progress:

(page 247 of 374)
"just got to part three...
feeling so much more moved this time than when i read it years ago. i think a lot of it just went over my head or i didn't really take the time to appreciate it. rue im so sorry. part of me is appalled at the scenario that a violent death of a child is not enough to connect people with their humanity but also look at US foreign policy. the bread to katniss after her death too.... sigh.." — Aug 21, 2024 06:20AM

Aug 22, 2024 07:32AM · see review