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As far as wildly popular things go, I tend to jump on the bandwagon fairly late. I don't know if I'm just slow to get the news, or if I think the furor will die down and I don't want to waste my energy. In high school, when everyone else was taking disco dance lessons, I hesitated. Then I got mono, and the opportunity never presented itself again. I'm sure there's a vacuum in my life because I can't dance like John Travolta. I'm equally sure the only reason I CAN'T dance like he does (did?) is because I missed the opportunity to take those lessons.
I only started watching Dancing with the Stars in something like season 7. And to tell you the truth, I'm just about to the point of being over THAT. Which has nothing at all to do with this blog post.
I read The Hunger Games at the urging of both Sweet Girl and Rozmo. Don't take this the wrong way, but I might not have read it based solely on the recommendation of my daughter. It's not that I'm perverse the way SHE is and am bound and determined to do the OPPOSITE of what she says (**ahem ahem**), but she and I have very different interests. We have found some common ground in some books and movies, though, so I was intrigued. Especially after about the fourth time she told me, "You've GOT TO read these books!" (To be honest, that may be another reason I resisted. I tend to dig my heels in when someone tells me I HAVE to do something.)
Rozmo was a bit of a different story. She is not what I would call a reader, but when she continued to gush over how wonderful the books were, I was interested enough to download them. I got them at a decent price (about $5 for each one, or I wouldn't have spent the money), but I still put off reading them until I finished The Count of Monte Cristo. I almost put them off further because I wanted to read TCMC again (seriously!), but I was afraid there might be some spoilers out there with the movie now playing, so I dug into them.
When I first started reading, I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. I found the subject matter slightly disturbing, but I continued reading. I got hooked on the story line, but what made me continue was the quality of the writing. I will stick with any book (I think) that has good writing, and this one didn't disappoint. I finally got to the point of looking beyond the surface horror of the subject matter and started seeing the deeper themes, the revelations about human beings, government, and survival.
I'm not going to do a full-blown analysis-type book review here. There are probably a billion "professional" reviews out there; the books have their own Wikipedia page, for crying out loud. I did like the first one, although I can't say for sure about the second one because I've barely started reading it. I do plan to see the movie, if I can steel myself for seeing on the screen the violence that up to now I've only read. I hope it doesn't give me bad dreams.
