Reason of the choice
One friend of mine, a long time ago, presented this book in class and I really liked the story back then. Then, the movie adaptation was made and I loved it so much that all I wanted was to buy the books that inspired such a good movie. These were the two main reasons why I have decided to pick and read this book.
Reaction to the first pages
Since the beginning of the book, it was impossible to keep the movie apart and I was a little surprised by the early characterization that was made by the author in the first pages, which didn’t appear in the movie. Although I knew the story beforehand, these first pages were able to engage me into the following pages and made me read it in a completely different way than the one I was expecting to.
Summary
There is an early characterization of Katniss, the main character of this book, who was living in District 12, a poor State of Panem, who had to guarantee her and her family’s survival after her father’s death, since her mother was completely devastated and depressed.
In the Reaping Day, the day that two young people, aging 12 to 18, from each District of Panem are chosen to fight for his/her life against all the remaining tributes in the Hunger Games, which is the way the Capitol reminds every citizen in the Districts, that once had rebelled, that they are the ones who rule the country, Primrose, the younger sister of Katniss was the chosen female tribute from District 12. However, Katniss volunteered to take her place. The other tribute chosen was Peeta, the baker’s son and the one who once fed Katniss when she was starving, when she was younger.
Then, they went to the Capitol by train, in which they met Haymitch, a previous victor of the Hunger Games, who would be their mentor. When they reached the Capitol, both Katniss and Peeta were stunned by the richness and by the strangeness that characterized all people, including Effie Trinket, the woman who picked their names back in District 12, since they were used to the extreme poverty.
After arriving in the Capitol, they were presented to every citizen of Panem and, due to Cinna, Katniss stylist, she was noticed by everyone. Later, in a private session with the Gamemakers, Katniss was given a punctuation of 11, in a scale of 1 to 12, because she shot an arrow in the direction of the Gamemakers into an apple in the mouth of a pig. Before departing to the arena where the Games were supposed to take place, the tributes were interviewed and Peeta made a huge statement by telling everyone that he was in love with Katniss.
Then, they went to the arena, and the Games started. In the first hours, most of the tributes were dead and Katniss found out that Peeta was allied with the Careers, the tributes from District 1, 2 and 4. After some troubles, Katniss made an alliance with Rue, a little girl from District 11 which reminded Katniss of her sister, and together they destroyed the supplies of the Careers. However, when Katniss went back to meet Rue, she killed the boy from District 1, but only after he had thrown a spear into Rue, killing her.
After Rue’s death, it was announced that two tributes from the same District could be crowned winners and, as soon as Katniss heard it, she went looking for Peeta, who was camouflaged and badly hurt. To help him recover, Katniss had to go to the place where the remaining Careers were to gather a medicine to treat him. However, in there, she was ambushed by the girl from District 2 and Katniss was only able to get out of there alive because Thresh, a boy from District 11, killed the girl and spared the life of Katniss, since he felt all the pain she felt when Rue died.
After a some days, Cato, the boy from District 2, killed Thresh and the other tribute that was still alive was killed by Peeta’s ignorance of what berries to eat. When there were only just the three of them, Katniss and Peeta went after Cato to kill him, being successful in that mission.
In the end, there was only Peeta and Katniss alive but they weren’t declared as the victors and it was announced that, once more, there could only be one victor. However, Katniss decided that they should eat the poisonous berries, leaving the Gamemakers with an option of having two victors or no one at all and they chose to let them live.
Highlights
There were many good points about this book but the main one is surely the criticism that is made to the dictatorship, which was present throughout the book.
It could be seen in the way that only the people from the Districts had to fight between themselves just to entertain the people from the Capitol, and nobody from there had to worry about it. Moreover, the people from most of the Districts had to live in very poor conditions, while, in the Capitol, there was food in abundance. Besides, it could also be seen when the Capitol censored some footage from the Games, where Katniss “defied” the Capitol, both when she covered Rue’s body with flowers and when she and Peeta decided to eat those berries.
Recommendation
In my opinion, this is a very good book. The author’s writing style is very light, which helps to go through all the book, not to mention the amazing plot which gives body to this book.
Moreover, as I already highlighted above, I definitely have to recommend this book due to the message the author wants to share with everyone: a dictatorship is a very serious issue, which must be faced by all of us, being the first step to identify it as soon as it appears to avoid the bad consequences it always carries.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário