H is for...

Hunger Games! (Duh)

So clearly there has been a lot of hype about the series lately, with the release of the first (of three, hopefully) movie.  If you don't already know here is a quick rundown of the first book/ movie taken directly from the Hunger Games website;

Set in a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called The Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdee steps forward to take her younger sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.

So yeah, not exactly your common young adult novel.  I'm hard pressed to even think of other stories like it, except for Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell.  Due to the violent nature of the book, there is some controversy involved.  Murder stories are most typically reserved for an older audience.  But the whole thing with this series is that the contestants are children, aged 12-18.  So who better to read the books?  I personally read The Most Dangerous Game (which, if you didn't know is about hunting humans for sport) when I was 14.  I don't think I've been overly harmed by it.  You know, except for those three ghouls I killed on Halloween last year... I kid, I kid.  But seriously, if people are worried about exposing their children to violence then they should lock them in a padded room with puzzles of kittens or something because violence abounds in this world today.  

I think one of the reasons the violence in this book works, despite it being quite descriptive sometimes, is because there is a story involved with it.  We know the back story, we know the character motives, we know it's not a good thing that's happening in this story.  We feel the character's pain throughout the book.  Well, I did anyways.  So I guess my final words on letting kids read the books would be, if you are a parent and you're concerned with what they are reading, either 1) read it yourself and discuss it with them, because it really is a good book, or 2) don't let them read it.  To each his own.  If you are worried about seeing the movie, yes there is violence there, but they did a pretty good job of shaking the cameras so much during the really violent scenes (think muttations) that I was surprised nobody got seasick in the theater.  I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, let alone seeing what was actually happening on screen.  This was one of my biggest issues with the movie, but then again I'm not a parent.  Nor am I an impressionable youth.   So I understand why they did it that way but it was still a little annoying for me personally.

Now that that's out of the way, I have to admit I am absolutely loving all of the parodies and songs and videos and memes and everything that's been coming out that's Hunger Games related.  To begin, there's the Beanie Baby Hunger Games...

...(a classic for any 90s child) that gives a nice rundown of the story for anyone who hasn't read it.  You'll probably have had to read the books to understand the following: this website full of cute Hunger Games comics, and the following image from this site...

There's the play on Lana Del Rey's song "Video Games" entitled Lana Del Ray's "Hunger Games".

My personal favorite is this video entitled "Day in the Life: Hunger Games"

And, of course, every college student's nightmare...

 

Luckily, I managed to get into all but one class when I registered yesterday.  Only one year left!

I hope I've inspired you to read the book(s) if you haven't and re-read them if you have!  If you didn't like them, for whatever reason, I really don't want to hear it, so please don't comment :)!  I will happily discuss the merits of a book in person but I hate doing it over the internet, so I just won't!

To all those visiting from the Blogging A to Z Challenge, May the Odds be Ever in Your Favor (as you continue on through the alphabet!)

Oh!  And don't forget to take a look at my friend Hayley here who looks decidedly like a female version of Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).