Response to the Hunger Games

I'm coming off a high. I just consumed three books in a matter of four days. Those books were the series that makes up the Hunger Games trilogy.

I feel like a kid again. These are the first books that I've read from cover to cover (for fun!) in a loooong time. I'm almost embarrassed to say how long - mainly because I don't remember myself.

I love becoming so engrossed in a book that you risk insomnia to finish, but you're able to stay up all night reading because your adrenaline is pumping just like Katniss Everdeen's as she races through the arena. So, I don't sleep, but I feel so awake and alive, because nothing matters more than finding out if she lives or dies. I'm invested in her. In her story. Then in the morning after I've pulled an all-nighter reading a book for fun I feel drained, not physically, but emotionally. I've been with her, experienced everything as she has. Then again, this could just be my tendency to over-empathize with everything. 

I get off on books about a future dystopia. The Hunger Games, the actual games, comes with all the trimmings of reality TV and roman gladiators. Complete with talk backs, drama, and season highlights. It's frightening to see our current world and 'pleasures' morphed into something ugly. Reality TV morphed into something like the Hunger Games. The exploitation of people within our own country. It's not so far fetched. That's what's most frightening.

The Handmaid's Tale is another one of my favorite dystopia books.

"I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination. I firmly believe this." - Atwood

Agreed.