The Hunger Games

I first read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins just before the first movie came out in 2012.  I started reading The Hunger Games Saturday evening and in less than 24 hours finished the three books.  Afterwards I felt exhausted, hyper, shaky; I felt like a powerful drug was working it's way out of my system.

Last week, I reread the three before the Catching Fire movie came out, which started playing in United States theaters on Friday, November 22.

I could talk at length about these books and the movie adaptations but since it's been a few days since I read them, I don't have anything right in foreground to discuss.

But something about this reread has stuck with me.  Having gone directly from Fifty Shades of Grey to The Hunger Games, I was really struck by the differences between Ana Steele and Katniss Everdeen.  As I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before, one of the most annoying things about Ana is her complete dependence on Christian for well... everything.  Katniss though- Katniss is such a BAMF.  Yeah she's got the two guys who love her but she says *repeatedly* that she can't think about that now.  Katniss has got bigger fish to fry than daydreaming about who to marry and how to make him happy.   When Ana ends things with Christian, she gets severely depressed and stops eating.  Katniss endures through far more traumatic experiences and while she has moments of what I'd consider severe PTSD (and really, who could blame her?), she survives.

I loved Katniss as a character from my first read through but giving the timing of this, her strength was really that must clearer in comparison.