Have you seen the 2nd and 3rd of the Hunger Games movies (Catching Fire and Mockingjay)? What did you think of them?

I have very much enjoyed the film adaptations, but I have no idea how they would be perceived without having read the books. Very differently, I imagine. The movies depict the situation, the books, written in first person present narrative, are more (to me) about the general angst and self-doubt of a teenage girl (very true to type) and the dystopian circumstance is simply a vehicle for the emotional growth and questioning this young woman goes through.

Do I remember that you have a young daughter? sorry if I misremembered If you do, the books are a good way to understand how her adolescent stream-of-conciousness monologue will go.

@canidmajor: Yes, she is 7 right now.

If you have already read the books, I apologize for my verbosity. If not, you would likely enjoy them.

Have fun with your daughter; they are mysterious and fascinating creatures, daughters! :-)

Haven’t read the books yet. I am looking forward to it. There are so many books for adolescents now, way more then when I was young.

Thank you, @canidmajor!

I read the books before the movies came out. I love both.
The first movie used a “jiggle cam”, which makes it look like something is happening when it isn’t. The first movie suffered for this.
The second and third movies didn’t use that camera, and they were better. The story’s complexity is often missed, but most of the meat is here. I am looking forward to Part II.

Ditto what @filmfann said.
My daughter got me interested in the books.

I liked both the books and the films. It’s junk food, not a gourmet meal, but entertaining. The books are extremely graphic for the young audience that tends to consume them, and I found that very disconcerting. Age 7 is very young to be thinking about children killing each other, in my opinion. But you’re asking on your own behalf, and not your daughter’s, I assume.

@dappled_leaves: Yes, for myself. She would find these movies way too scary right now. She would also probably not comprehend the books too well, just yet, either.

@dappled_leaves It really isn’t junk food. These books (and, to a lesser but still significant amount, these movies) have an amazing depth, which you can easily miss. Revisit this when you have seen the last film.
It reminds me of Harry Potter. It is easy to read the first 3 books and not realize the big picture of what has happened, but by the time you are in the last book, you understand the complexity.

@filmfann I disagree that either Hunger Games or the Harry Potter series has “amazing depth”. Both have themes that are very relevant to the society we live in. But they’re not particularly subtle, and let’s face it – the writing in Hunger Games is fairly pedestrian. Collins doesn’t use language particularly well.

JK Rowling is also not a brilliant writer. I like that she weaves in language and themes from other myths and tropes (others call this derivative, but I disagree), but both she and Collins are still what I would qualify as junk-food writers.

Gee, @dappled_leaves, I had a different take on the writing of the Hunger Games altogether. I thought Collins captured the language usage of an adolescent girl very well. I might agree with you if the books weren’t written from Katniss’ first person perspective, but they are, and written to appeal to a 13 – 17 year old audience. I think she captured the tone of that masterfully. Having at one time been an adolescent girl, and raised some, I see the voice as genuine.

I can’t speak to Rowling as I couldn’t even get through the first Harry Potter. Just a matter of taste, not a censure of her writing.