I only read the first book and never got around to this one, but I thought it could have been just fine as a novella or long short story with some interesting social commentary on how tyrannical states use both war and entertainment to control those they oppress. I thought that actually portraying the Games in as much detail as they did was kind of redundant, but sort of necessary for the target audience to pound home the more subtle nuances of just how this sort of thing is NOT COOL.

And really, from a marketing perspective it makes sense to target a younger or less sophisticated audience, because while higher level readers are still capable of being entertained by, and interested in, stuff below their level, it definitely does not work the other way around.

I wrote off a lot of the carping from feminists and others about how Katniss has no real agency in the book, and mostly just lets people do stuff for her, because I figured that was the point. In my understanding of the series and its message, the caprice and randomness of the system was part of its cruelty, that Katniss was not a heroine kicking ass and proving she's the best. Around. No one's gonna bring her down... Anyway, what she really was in my vision of the story, was a victim. The way I read the Hunger Games, it was about a good, hard-working, self-sacrificing young woman going to every length she could to provide for her mother and sister, only to have it ruined by a very long shot chance picking her sister for the games. Katniss wasn't volunteering for a chance to win the Games, she was volunteering to die in her sister's place. From there, the rest of the book, the details of the Games and all the stuff with her costumes and image and faking the romance with Peeta, were all to show how fickle and shallow the reasons by which children lived or died in these horrible things. People complain that she isn't the best, and that she doesn't really beat too many opponents, but I figured that was the point... it's really not about her being a champion but a survivor, as much by a fluke or luck as anything else, that all her not-inconsiderable skills could have still failed to save her at the whim of the audience or the organizers.

I thought all that was part of the message or theme of the book. But after seeing Catching Fire, I am wondering if it was merely my lack of perspective on the series as a whole that gave me such an optimistic view of Collins' intentions. Because it seems like they are actually aiming at a story of butt-kicking and action, rather than a dystopian setting that serves as social commentary. And as the critics I prematurely dismissed point out, it is not very good at the former.

But Panem is not a world that stands up on close examination, so giving it more depth ruins the verisimilitude. The specialized districts work fine as representative of different parts of society and illustrating across the board oppression. As an actual setting, it raises a lot of skepticism, making the specialized nationalities of David Eddings' Belgariad seem grounded in historical fact by comparison. There is really only one district where they mine and one where they farm, and one where they fish? Ooookay.
But not given much character to work with. All the complaints about her shortcomings as a heroine make more sense now, with the whole "we're secretly planning a rebellion, you're our figurehead and no, this is not information we're going to share with you. At least until the last scene" bit they came up with. And watching Katniss's petulance and equivocation and overly-emotional reactions to everything, I can't really argue with that plan. I laughed out loud when Haymitch tells her "This is why no one trusts you with the real plans.". Giving the other Tributes more character is undercut by having them all survive and be on the same team. The only tributes with real character or memorable attributes were the ones in Katniss' alliance, whose joining had nothing to do with her or what she did. The only ones to die in that bunch were the stringy older ladies, who aren't cool or decorative so who needs them, amiright?

What's more, they threw out a lot of the stakes of the plot with that twist at the end. "This time you're up against cold, hard killers and badasses!" This time it's more dangerous... except it wasn't really. Most of those badasses turned out to be secretly on her side, and were a bodyguard detail she was planning on murdering, which made the extreme to which they kept the real plan a secret somewhat ridiculous, and more geared at surprising the audience than being effective security for their operation. Half the melodrama came from Peeta and Katniss trying to top each others' sacrifice, and if the conspirators had just told one of them (Peeta) too knock it off because there was a plan to get them both out, we could have been spared a lot of superfluous adolescent BS.

On the other hand, the whole arena-as-a-clock gimmick is more plausible when you find out the guy who designed it is on their side. But then that too undercuts the act of defiance by Katniss in stringing up the dummy as a reminder of his predecessor. Another bit of verisimilitude was the ass-whooping they gave Lenny Kravitz. The whole time Donald Sutherland is fuming about Katniss as a symbol of defiance, the part of me that roots for dictators and tyrants was saying "Make an example out of her fashion-guy. Her fame and appeal is mostly his fault anyway." And in Katniss' place, I'd have been all "Whoa, Cinna, dial back the costumes and stuff, you're causing more problems than you're solving here..." So that's another thing made more acceptable in hindsight with the conspiracy, assuming that I correctly interpreted him as being a member of it.

We'll see. I'm withholding final judgment until I see the last one, because this really doesn't have any standalone merit, IMO. While that can usually be forgiven in the middle work in a series, there is also the case of Empire Strikes Back, so even the "part of an ongoing story" excuse doesn't hold up.

8 out of 10 poison mists.