Book Review: The Hunger Games

I picked up The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins from the public library - children's section - on a recommendation from a friend. She described it as captivating and a little dark. It's the first book I've read in a long time that gave me chills in chapter one and demanded that I keep reading straight through to the end. There are no wizards or potions, no secret passages or time warps, just children in poverty struggling to survive in a future America where they are forced to kill each other for sport while the rest of the world watches. The ruling class is revealed to be grotesque and amoral, and the citizens of the surrounding 12 districts making up North America have no recourse for the injustices they suffer. The book is horrific, unsettling, and thought-provoking.

This book is promoted as young adult fiction, but should not be checked out by anyone under 16. That said, I think it should be required reading for high school seniors. Think Stephen King's Running Man sprinkled with Orwell's 1984, set with a teenage cast. Consider me a fan. I'm going to pick up the second in the series, Catching Fire, today.

Review by Lacey Fitts

Book Review: Matched

Before I delve into my rant about the absence of any quality in this book, let me lend you my lens so that you may put it into proper perspective. I love good literature. I love some bad literature. I believe that some bad literature makes for a good summer read. But here's the trick. Good literature and bad literature should never be combined. It's like combining homemade lemon icebox pie with stale cheerios. Stale cheerios have their place- ask my kids...but you certainly wouldn't want to taint a perfect piece of lemon pie by mixing in stale cheerios. I read this because I was in the mood for stale cheerios. I wanted a brainless, fun, summer love story, but what I got was a horribly botched combination of Orwellion ideas with Stephanie Meyer-ish plot.

Matched is a teenage, futuristic, dystopian love story by Ally Condie. In short, Condie makes Stephanie Meyer look like a genius. George Orwell would be appalled to find this book sitting on the shelf next to his own brilliant dystopian love story, 1984. The characters are hollow and the plot is slow and uninteresting. Maybe I overestimate the level of reading comprehension that our youth are capable of, but I was surprised at how simplistic and unsophisticated her writing actually was--with the exception of the completely random 6 syllable word that I had to look up in the dictionary. The one positive thing I can say about this book is that it surprisingly did not contain any sexually explicit plot. However, if you censor books containing religious apathy or mixed religious messages, this may not be the book for your teen. As in most dystopian novels, the state is god.

The book follows Cassia, a seventeen year old girl, who upon turning thirteen, receives her "match" from the state. (The person she is to spend her life with) He is her best friend from childhood, and a perfect fit. However, she takes interest in another boy of her childhood, who is on the fringe of good-standing society due to the sins of his parents. Throughout the book, Cassia battles with herself over the choice between what is right and what feels right.

My final words? If you linger in the teen section at Barnes and Noble and happen to pick up this book...put it down and walk away. :) It'll save you a few hours of pointless reading that you will never, ever be able to get back.

Review by Callie Morgan