And thus concludes my "I finally got around to reading the Hunger Games".
I think I feel better for it.
Having read them in fairly quick succession, I find myself picking up on Collins writing tics and tendencies to rely on chapter-ending cliffhangers A LOT. It does get annoying.
Also, and I don't know it, it takes me about a fifth of each book before I actually care about what's going on; mostly because Katniss sulking is annoying and frustrating and we all know she's going to step it up so her internal drama just ends up taking up space and doesn't really build her character because she does it over and over again (It reminds me of Rand al Thor, although thankfully, not as interminable).
Otherwise, well, it was a pretty well-handled story and I thought Collins did a good job not pulling punches. I can see why the series worked; it has that compelling drive in it that I associate with the Harry Potter books of "I have to finish this now!" which explains a lot of its success to me.
Spoiler alert:
Really? It's a brave new world and we HAVE to marry off our two broken heroes? We couldn't just leave them broken? We had to bring back the beyond-crazily altruistic Peeta? Sorry, that bothers me and I don't know why. I think I would have preferred it without the epilogue. Everyone knows that the hero never returns and Frodo cannot stay in the Shire. I wonder why Katniss can.