The one thing I really enjoy about reading the books that we will talk about on Optionated is that for the most part, they are books that people have heard of. You can often find yourself in a group of people and if you want to talk about this book you may have someone to speak with. Well I can tell you due to a power outage I was able to read the book in one sitting from start to finish and I just loved it. It was almost impossible to put down, but now that I go back and think about it I did have a few scenes that just did not feel great to me.



What you will read below is my account of scenes that did not work or could have had another way to give us the same impression. So they are spoilers for The Hunger Games, as I will be doing this for each book in the series. This is my first time with The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, but I feel that I am an avid reader and have been around the web long enough to know that not everyone is going to agree.

** SPOILERS for The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins **

The biggest issue I had in the books was where Clove finally gets a hold of Katniss and has not only the time but the ability to end her life quickly. We are in a fight to the death and ending the life of the highest rated contestant (11 ranking Katniss) would be of the highest priority. This just seems very 80s cartoonish, where we are led to believe the taunting is necessary from the villian. Now this scene gets even more bizarre when Thresh comes up from behind and saves Katniss. He decides to let her go because of what she did for Rue? Now we do not know the story behind the relationship that Rue and Thresh have, but still do I need to remind you this is a fight to the death? Have a bird sing a song and distract Thresh so Katniss can get away or something seems more believable, I would even say having a bird swoop out of the air would have fared better for me.

Foxface just seemed way too smart to fall for the berries. I mean Peeta didn’t exude super smarts so when she sees him with the berries she thinks they are ok. In a fight to the death he could have been using the berries for malice and she pays the price. I think from what we know of Foxface, she would have waited to see if an animal ate them or if Peeta actually put them in his mouth. She just seemed smarter than that to me.

Peeta not dying and coming back so quickly seemed, I guess can be attributed to some sort of special medicine they had. But the thing is, he is cut to the bone and sits in mud and does not die? Seems pretty suspect to me. This one though I can attribute to the Capitol being super awesome at medicine.

The wolf muttations at the end of the games made to look like the contestants. For me I just thought it was too much, were they actually dna harvested muttations so when someone died they made these wolves? That is what I originally had thought, but at my dinner discussion it was brought to my attention that maybe they just made these muttations at the beginning of the games and then that was the perfect time to unleash them. The problem that I had is they just tip the scales too far in unbelievable for me. I hear whispers though from other readers that I do not know how pyschological the games are so I can give that a pass.

Arrows and Bow, without these, Katniss is just done for, but I think maybe because of her stunt with the Gamemakers and the apple. I guess they wanted to see her succeed? Or did they just want some more sport since they figured this would make her more lethal? Personally I would have liked to have seen her make her own bow and arrows.

This article is not meant to be a knock on Suzanne Collins or The Hunger Games as I loved the book. Rather it was meant to be thought provoking discussion on the book and some of the scenes that suck out to me.

If a comment references the later books, not just The Hunger Game, put the word Spoilers up at the top please.

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