28 Mar 2012

The Hunger Games: The Book

I had a fleeting knowledge of “The Hunger Games” in only a way you can when the hype spills out onto magazines, tag lines and sneaks into conversation. It wasn’t as though I ignored the hype – it just wasn’t for me; a series of books, aimed at children, about some kind of macabre Olympics in an unknown time and an unrecognisable place? No thank you.

Exceptional books have a magic that allows for them to somehow weave in and out of your environment, often ignoring your own resistance to find themselves on your bedside table. So here I was. “The Hunger Games” downloaded to my Kindle and a determination not to like it one bit.

And I didn’t like it. I didn’t even adore it. There was a new level of adulation I have for “The Hunger Games” that I still don’t quite know how to describe it. The pure adoration I feel encompasses everything to an extent it devours it. I adored the characters and their authenticity and complexities. The adventure consumed me to a point where it’s easy to lose yourself and lose time as you turn the pages. The only reason I didn’t finish it in one sitting was the innate need for the story to live longer.

“The Hunger Games” has the extraordinary ability to never really leave you – it filled my dreams and my days are spent wondering how the journey will unfold for the characters I’ve grown to love.

I haven’t felt this way about a book in such a long time, I don’t really know if I have ever really felt this way.  Bereft at finishing “The Hunger Games”, my only salvation is I have the remaining books of the triology, “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay”, to console me.

Highly, highly recommended.

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