Review: The Hunger Games.

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  THE HUNGER GAMES REVIEW: 

'In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts.Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death – televised for all of Panem to see.

Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.'

I gotta tell you, I did have apprehensions about the Hunger Games in the beginning. Come on! Don't tell me you didn't think it was about FOOD!( I realized what it was later on, thankfully). I first learnt about the Hunger Games from my friend. She gave me a brief description of the story and quite honestly, it didn't sound all that appealing. It was still the time when I was obsessing over Percy Jackson, Harry Potter and Naruto and I didn't want to leave the shiny, happy, sparkly worlds of Greek Mythology, Hogwarts and ninjas to a barbaric, depressing, dystopia. Hell, I didn't even know the meaning of the word until The Hunger Games. 
So, what did I do? I ignored my friend's suggestion and went back to my darling Wimpy Kid. Then my sister ordered the Hunger Games trilogy (I still suspect it was for the cover) online, ergo, I actually had to give it a try whether I liked it or not.
So, on the morning of the first day of my Dussehra break, I started reading the Hunger Games. 

I started reading...

And reading....

AND Reading......

Finally...                                                                                   

OH MY FREAKING GOD! I LOVE IT! SUZANNE COLLINS IS GENIUS! ASABHFFBEKJFBEKFB....ABUSER OF CAPSLOCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No, really. I loved every, infinitesimal second of it. I finished the first book in a day and the rest of the trilogy during the remaining part of the vacation and then spent the next two consecutive nights thinking about what would happen in Catching Fire and Mockingjay. The Hunger Games is one of those rare breeds of books whose story line is so gripping that it is simply un-put-down-able. You cannot stop reading it until you finish and even after you finish, you can't stop thinking about it. 
The characters and the character development is such a pleasure to read, the plot is simply superb and the writing style (although I had a few qualms about the first person-present tense in the beginning, not being very used to it) is simple and blunt, yet has an elegance to it. I, for one, found the division of the story into three parts to be apt and perfect with a cliffhanger at the end of every book(excluding the last one of course). The Hunger Games is part suspense, part adventure, part philosophy and even part romance. It's the whole freaking package!

The plot-
The plot was so unique, so original and so...well, shocking. The continuous twists and Katniss' fight for survival made the book not boring for even a second. The descriptions were so visual, it was almost like a screenplay. I could picture everything that Suzanne described most vividly. 
...
Well, most of them anyway.  

Most of all, I loved Katniss' way of thinking. Her blunt, surly way of looking at things was far better than being stuck in Bella's sappy head in Twilight any day( Excuse me for comparing THG and Twilight. I know they're in completely different leagues). War and the fights in general weren't described as sleek or smooth or sexy but were explained vividly and properly, like how they would happen in real life. The Hunger Games was ugly, blunt, bloody, brutal, barbaric and so very real.
 It was funny how sometimes, major shocking news was delivered so obtusely (for example, the aftermath of the Games in both 'Hunger Games" and "Catching Fire".) while Suzanne Collins paid so much attention to the minute details like contrasting the food in the Capitol to those in the Seam. 

WARNING: The rest of the review contains some major spoilers if you still haven't read the book(s). If you don't want your reading experience to be spoiled, beware. You've been warned. Turn away while you still can.

The Characters-

Katniss is an inspiration. Period. She is badass, independent, strong, fierce and deadly and is what every girl should aim to be. She is a survivor (literally) and *spoiler alert* Rue's death bringing her human side out was beautiful. Katniss is so amazing that she makes people fall in love with her without even trying( And NO! She isn't a Mary Sue). Okay, so the Hunger Games has a love triangle. So what? That isn't the central dilemma anyway. 

Now, about the next main character. Peeta Mellark. I absolutely loved Peeta. There's just something about him and his unconditional love and his kindness that is so endearing unlike all those other jealous, masochistic, arrogant male leads that are all the rage nowadays( 50 Shades of Shit Grey, anyone?). I really liked how Katniss and Peeta's relationship developed over the books. 

Anywaaay, most of the other main characters came out in the later books but all of the characters left a deep impression on me. I fell in love with Finnick, Cinna and Boggs. 
Like everybody else, some of the character deaths were so shocking that I had to reread to make sure it wasn't a misprint. Then I proceeded to cry like a baby and didn't touch the book for a few hours out of spite.
*Spoiler Alert* 
Finnick's death killed me. Killed me. 

On a more serious note, the Hunger Games is nothing but Suzanne Collin's take on the violence in wars mixed with reality shows in a brutal, harsh, futuristic world( aka Dystopia). The Hunger Games made me cry, made me laugh, made me marvel in its epic-ness but it also made me think about the violence, war and destruction in today's world and how we might be leading our world into an even worse future. We need change and we need it now. And the Hunger Games not only imparts this message but arouses it. 

So that's that. My review of The Hunger Games (which my sister has been badgering me to write for a week). I rate the Hunger Games 5/5 and I encourage anybody out there who has had stupid, precursory assumptions like mine, to get rid of them and pick up their copy of The Hunger Games immediately. And believe me, when you finally put it down, you won't think the same way. 

And like Effie Trinket says, 'May the odds be ever in your favor.'

Thanks for sticking with me for so long and sorry if I spoiled anything but really....

Finally, after watching The Hunger Games, there is something I desperately want to do. THIS--->

Ataraxis.

Song Credits: The Hunger Games Theme.

Introducing Meera

So. Here I am, squatted on the floor, laptop  on my.. well, lap, racking my brain to squeeze out a witty, informative, entertaining piece for this blog my friend and I are about to start. Having taken a year off after school, the two of us have quite a lot of time on our hands, preparing for our Law School entrances being our main agenda in the near future. And so, we came up with the idea of writing a blog. Initially, we decided we'd dedicate the blog to current affairs, what's on the news channels, and all. But hey, who reads the news? (I mean, apart from the clever kids- the over achievers and the likes.) Reading the paper is one thing, and following through on every inch of progress on some treaty between two minuscule countries, even the names of which the rest of the world is bound to forget in the next couple of days, is another. 

And so, we decided our blog'd contain all things fun. Like articles on religiosity(okay not the kind that set off mobs running after us, after tracking our IP address, that is), food- everybody loves food! Clothes, fitness( this friend of mine, is a fitness freak. She's bent upon having her waist measure the same as her age), TV, movies, art.. pretty much anything that leads a person into believing writing (or reading, for that matter), doesn't require a very learned person's brain to be smeared all over the piece, showing off their smartness. Sometimes, it's all about enjoying yourself; and most importantly, keeping things simple.

Now. What's this article (or whatever one may wish to call this) about? I'm still trying to figure that out. As I write, I'm juggling the Big Bang Theory, Two And A Half Men, and Facebook chat with four friends, and also the sixth chapter of Queen of Babble gets hitched. That book is goooood. So that means I'm good at multitasking, right? Oh, also, I suffer from ADD.. Which, is how, my English essays on child labour end up having excerpts from Wuthering Heights and Holes. Yes, I'm talking about the same essay. :) 

But hey! I've got a functional brain! Whoo hoo! I've realized, there's a reason we've been created with a brain. To think of ways to ward off evil friends who want you to type pages and pages of replies to their crazy queries, and when you're finally done writing to them, all they do to display their copious amounts of gratitude is with a sleigh of a hand, say 'hmmmmm'. I haven't still gotten to figuring out the 'warding off' part. But I'm getting warmer.

I almost forgot. I double out as an agony aunt as well. And I'm so good at it, that I can probably make a living out of it. In all modesty, that is. I'm serious. I've been doing this since 9th grade. I wrote this column- 'Ask Estabanitha'.. And the one drawback of it all is, it leaves you so high and dry of opinions and advice for yourself in times of crisis, that you don't trust others enough to rely on them for some honest feedback. That's something like, being the world's best masseuse and therefore, never trusting your foot/back to the hands of another. That, borders in on insecurity. But it isn't exactly that. Is it?