I read this book for the read-a-thon, and I must say it was an excellent choice as it was quite a page turner. This book is taking the internet by storm, and while I did enjoy it, I didn’t quite love the book.
I’m not going to go through the plot as quite a few people have read it, or if they haven’t, there are plenty of sources to find that information. I will say that the plot was, in my view, the best part of the book. As I said above, it’s quite a page turner, but although I didn’t think the writing was bad per se, I didn’t feel it was up to par with The Giver by Lois Lowry or The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. The romance angle in the book irritated me a bit. I understand to a degree why it was necessary to the plot, but I thought it could have been a little more well done. Another minor irritation was the naming of the characters in the book. I suppose it was done on purpose, but I felt it distracted me from the story every time I came upon a strange name. I’ve never really noticed it in books like Lord of the Rings, etc., but in this book the names just seemed a bit silly.
Even with all that said, I did like the book quite a bit and plan on reading the entire trilogy. I hate to be too negative when I actually enjoyed it, but since it’s received so many rave reviews, I just thought I’d explain why my rating was a little lower.
2008, 374 pp.
Disclosure: I purchased this book for my personal library.
I am glad you liked this so much. It really was an engaging read! I am looking forward to book 3.
I read this and Catching Fire back-to-back during the Readathon too (reviews will post next week). I was actually relieved to like it as much as I did! I thought the writing was good, for the most part – it didn’t call attention to itself, at any rate. But I totally agree with you about the character names
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You should always review honestly no matter what other rave reviews say. It’s always tough writing a review that seems to differ from majority opinion, but I am always glad to see them!
I read this one during the read-a-thon too! Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to Catching Fire but hopefully I will soon.
As for the names, the only one I had a problem with was Katniss. I kept reading it as Cat piss.
I completely agree with your assessment! I read it during the readathon as well, and I loved it while I was reading. I could not put it down, which was perfect for the readathon. The romance bothered me too; the love triangle came out of nowhere for me (and also was clearly setting up the next events in the trilogy.) It was a great ride, but I’m not sure it was a great book. I need to finish my review for this book too!
I read it as part of the Read-a-thon as well and loved it. I agree, the writing isn’t on par with something like The Giver, but yet it’s steps above something like Twilight. The names did bug me, I could never remember the characters names afterwards because they were strange. I liked how the romance was handled, because I could relate to her mixed feelings about these two guys, how she was always comparing her district-mate (see, the name thing again) with Gale.