Book 3 Review: The Hunger Games and 13 Reasons Why

                 Even though most won’t admit it, people pry and meddle into each other’s personal lives to find out juicy information. Knowing the unknown is something everyone cherishes.  Media these days encourages the public to dig around into anyone and everyone’s secluded details. People have become so fascinated with each other’s dilemmas that they even like to read about it.

In the book Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, a teenage girl named Hannah Baker commits suicide, but before, sends thirteen tapes out to the thirteen people that caused her depression. Clay Jensen, a boy who had eyes for Hannah, receives the box of tapes. He becomes engrossed with them and spends the entire night listening to all Thirteen Reasons why Hannah kills herself. Although it appears that Clay is listening out of lust for Hannah, he never had the guts to talk to her but for one night. And even that night, he didn’t reach out to help her although he saw that she was in distress after she had a mental break down. However, when he doesn’t have to face her in person he has no problem with listening to every single one of Hannah’s deep dark secrets. She was alive her classmates were mesmerized with gossiping about Hannah behind her back. Why is it that Clay and the rest of the school couldn’t ask Hannah about her own life to her face? Because, that wouldn’t be the socially accepted thing to do; it is more favored to stay out of people’s lives and do the snooping in private.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, however, is more public about imposing on the lives of young people from all over the nation. Each year the Capitol holds an event called The Hunger Games, which is where kids, a boy and a girl from all twelve districts, compete to the death.  While that happens every family and person who live in Panem is required to watch the Games, and some even get excited to view the killings. A girl names Katniss and her teammate, Peeta, is forced into the death match after Peeta confesses his love for Katniss; this twist seems to excite the crowd even more. So why is it that both book characters and readers are so engrossed with spying on other people’s personal lives?

Each of these books tell vivid details of the gory and disturbing scenes of Katniss and Hannah’s uphill battles from physically unsettling details from The Hunger Games, “The deep inflamed gash oozing both blood and pus. The swelling of the leg. And worse of all, the smell of festering flesh.” to words that take a toll on the emotion in Thirteen Reasons Why, “You started a chain of events that ruined my life. Now, you were working on ruining hers.” These details are what make these books fascinating, even if it is a little disconcerting to get ones heart pounding over the words pus and festering flesh.

It is not only the topic, of death, pain, and suffering that is so intriguing; there must be a good writer behind that plot. The words mean something to readers, and that is what goes unnoticed. Both of these novels have something that all books work towards, loveable characters with a voice so deep that it enters your brain and festers in your heart until your hands become glued to the book itself. Both Collins and Asher have mastered this skill, and have created characters that force the reader into developing a relationship with. This is the foundation of the pure enjoyment and fascination that comes with chipping away the façade that comes with each character and diving into the true personality. Once the reader find out secrets and stories from the past about Hannah and Katniss, that is what hooks them in.

So is it just human nature to be curious about a stranger’s personal life, or is it the writer who makes the reader and the character become more of best friends, and the reader wants to support them though problems? It is a little bit of both. To make a good book, there must obviously be loveable and hated characters to advance plot. However, the writer must also meet the desires of the reader, and that means getting down and dirty with the plot and details. Both Collins and Asher mastered this skill, there making The Hunger Games and Thirteen Reasons Why must reads on my book shelf.

The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

Thirteen Reasons Why

Lovely Bones Book Trailer

My Top Five

When Katniss meets James

I am reading The Hunger Games and when I first thought about it I thought that Katniss was a very unique character but when it comes down to it no character is unique. Katniss is a girl who is making a sacrifice to save her little sister and is put through hardship and torturous events. Obviously, the author chose this plot to be interesting for the reader, and this is every writers goal. This was also the goal of the movie and true story Cinderella Man. Both of these main characters, Katniss and James, decide to step forward to support and help their family from a hard time. In Katniss’s case she decides to go to the Hunger Games when her little sister, Prim, is chosen. Katniss is then faced with the struggles and danger that is held in the Games.               In Cinderella man a retired boxer named James Braddock struggles to make ends meet during the great depression. He is running out of food and money to feet his family and decides to entire back in the boxing world. This is an uphill battle but he eventually overcomes and makes money to support his family adequately. I have yet to finish The Hunger Games and I don’t know what will happen to Katniss but if she does win the Games then she will be able to bring home food and fortune for her mom and younger sister who are living in poverty and are starving. Both stories describe the uphill battle that one makes for their families and I think that this is relatable for people of any age. We all make sacrifices and are forced to make difficult choices and each decision has a consequence whether it is good or bad. James and Katniss know that first hand, just like many people do in the real world.

How true does a book have to be to be considered non-fiction?

I think that depending on the book, it is okay to bend the truth a little bit if it is more exciting, as long as it doesn't change the outcome of the story. I think that it isn't okay to make up large plot twists but it is okay to leave things out or not tell the complete story if you are writing a memoir to make it more valuable and exciting for the reader. However, this does not go for all non-fiction, I think that this will only work if the author is making a story out of the events. It wouldn't work in a book like Freakonomics because if the author twisted the data then the book would all be faulty information and nothing would make sense. If the book is just stating facts and is informational, a little lie can change everything so that is okay. But a memoir like the book A Million Little Pieces it is okay to exaggerate and dramatize the story to make it more interesting. There is a fine line between exaggerating and lying, and exaggerating is okay, lying is not.
On the other hand, I do think that we need a label on fiction and non-fiction so that authors do not propose ideas to the reader of what is realistic and unreal. We can learn from both type of books in different ways, but we shouldn't mix the two up. For example, when reading a true story, the reader can look at the mistakes from the past and try not to do them, or look at the lessons that the author learned. But in a fiction piece, the results are not always realistic and the reader should know that. Also, the reader should know what they are getting themselves into. Some people aren't looking for true stories, and some are, but the reader should have an idea of what is going on.

Literary vs. Genre

I don’t think there is a problem with teaching literary fiction because it teaches students a lot about life, growing up, and hardships. I feel like the reason students are so against reading literary fiction because they already have the idea in their heads that the book will be "horrible."  I feel like part of the reason this is, is because of the way teachers teach books. I have had both good and bad teachers and the impact of their teaching styles have been great in different ways. The “good” teachers that I have had tend to teach the better books. However, I don’t think that that is a coincidence. I believe that these teachers just know the right techniques to get students to read the book while also understanding important concepts. Overall, I don’t think that it is the books that are considered “bad” by students are actually bad, I think it is the teaching style; so literary fiction should be kept in schools.

I don’t think that literary books such as Of Mice and Men should be swapped out for books such as Twilight because if people have been reading books like this for years they shouldn’t be forgotten just so that kids can keep up with the latest book trends. There can and should be certain books for genre fiction but they should take the place of the classics. A solution to this problem would be to give students more options so they don’t feel like they are being forced to read certain books. Such as when I had the choice between Gilead and The Road for a summer reading project I was more motivated to read because the project was more about me and it was more flexible.

I also don’t think that it is up to anyone to decide what good writing is because both literary fiction and genre fiction is good writing in different ways. I also don’t think that literary fiction is written better in terms of theme and symbolism because I think that a lot of genre fiction has those types of things woven into them and they could be studied. I think that a book list for today’s school should still include classics, because they are classics for a reason.  However, they should also have a few other more modern books that are really successful yet impactful; just because they weren’t read by people over many years doesn’t mean they aren’t good. I think that a book needs to be studied in its present time in order to become a classic.   

Overall, I just think that book lists should include newer books, and give more options, but I don’t think that the classics should be forgotten.

Adapting The Lovely Bones

     The biggest challenges a filmmaker would have when adapting The Lovely Bones is the fact that Susie dies within the first few pages of the book and as the story goes on there are flash backs of her life before she was murdered. I saw the film version of this story and the film makers did a very good job of this by showing little snippets of Susie's life and she narrated them. Then after that she was killed and it went on with the story. It was still probably hard to do because in the book the flash backs always tied in with what was going on in the current time period. However, I don't really think that the characters would really need to be changed to do this; they would actually need to be very developed in the movie like how they are in the book for the viewers to get a good idea of how they are. Also, the book was written in Susie's point of view so in the book you didn't see inside any other characters thoughts. This would help the film makers because they wouldn't have to turn the thoughts into actions for a movie and they could still have Susie narrate from Heaven for certain parts of the story. Basically, the film makers would be able to keep most parts of the plot they would just have to rearrange some of them for the story to make sense to people viewing the movie.
      Obviously, one scene that the filmmakers must keep for the story to work would be when Susie is killed, because without this scene there would be no point to the rest of the story, because her dad would not be looking for the killer, Susie would not be in Heaven, and none of the rest of the commotion would have been started or would have happened. Also, in the film Susie's mom, Abigail, doesn't cheat on Susie's dad, Jack, it just shows Abigail leaving the house. I think that that part of the plot is essential because it shows how the death of Susie destroys their family and how depressed Abigail really is. I think that that is an important part of the story and I would add it if I was the filmmaker. A third thing that the filmmaker could not exclude is when Susie's sister, Lindsey, goes into Mr. Harvey's house looking for evidence to prove that he was Susie's murderer. I am in the middle of reading this scene right now and I don't know what happens after it yet but in the movie this is what shows the police and Mr. Harvey killed Susie. This progresses the movie plot and ties it all together so I think that this scene is important in that aspect and it cannot be removed.
     I honestly think that some flashbacks of Susie's life before she was killed are pointless when adapting the story into a film, like when she saves Buckley's life when he is choking because that doesn't progress the plot and it will just take up more valuable time in the movie. The filmmaker would also have to cut a few details about Lindsey growing up because that isn't necessarily relevant to the story, although it is interesting to read. In the movie in shows Lindsey growing up in a scene with music in the background and just shots of important moments in her life. This would save time in the movie and it would be effective to cut out details of Lindsey growing up. A third thing to cut out is stories about minor characters, like neighbors and Ray's mom, because they don't progress the story and it only adds more details about the neighborhood and story, but it wouldn't matter in the movie, it would just take up time.