let the review begin!!!

• basics: christine lent to me the first book on the sunday of the week the movie comes out. even though she's been meaning to lend it to me for......months. but we keep forgetting about it. finished it same day. easy read. language is like it was written for eight year olds. i find that teen fiction these days, well the dystopian/paranormal young adult fiction boom (eg. twilight, shiver by maggie stiefvater and across the universe by beth revis, etc), all follow this recipe. where the writers and editors think the audience is really really really dumb or something. that's how i feel when i read them anyway. i mean, if you read some of the books from the golden age of young adult literature from the 70s/80s (which vpl sadly replaced with vampire/paranormal/dystopian mush circa 2009 - the reason why i deliberately avoid the teen section and regard it with disgust) the writers give you a good story written in english that can actually help teenagers expand their limited vocabulary and different writing styles. but yeah.
• first person pov always throws me off, especially if the narrator is a teenager because they just say really stupid things and include all the unnecessary details THAT WE DON'T REALLY NEED TO KNOW.
• tons of cliches, terrible phrasing, paragraph structuring, etc. if you don't believe me, i actually took pictures and posted them to twitter.
• not enough dialogue with gale to give him depth. we get to see more peeta, but it's mostly him healing from a leg injury and trying to get katniss to kiss him. although that scene on the rooftop before they go to the arena, where peeta says something like he wishes he could shame the capitol, i was like YESSSS. and then we don't get anymore. so i'm not on either's team since i can't really judge from what i've been shown.
• as for the other characters, no depth either. especially katniss. and if you know how i like my reading, you know that character development is essential in a good-superb read. so this book got like a -23904 in that category. although haymitch, cinna, and rue did show authenticity and potential to become well rounded characters. and to elaborate on katniss. collins failed. i could accept katniss' skewed view of everything before before the reaping, her hardness, aloofness >>IF<< throughout the story collins would show katniss' development. IN PARAGRAPHS. we see one sentence glimpes of katniss thinking about things, but it's always left hanging. hardly any resolve or change. for example, the whole "i hate and distrust my mother thing". on or after the train to the capitol, katniss reveals that she did say 'i love you' to her mom, and that she MAYBE should have really meant it. and then her thoughts are redirected to something else, like food. maybe if collins had actually shown that scene, of katniss interacting with her mom with dialogue instead of just katniss summarizing the ordeal in half a sentence like it's just a passing thought, i'd be more satisfied.
• TEAM RUE. but she's dead....so i've decided to stick with TEAM HAYMITCH.

parts that i did like

• cinna styling katniss and haymitch ordering her to act a certain way in front of everyone. a pretty solid satire of hollywood and the typical movie star's lifestyle today. which is why it's so funny to me that there is a MOVIE coming out for it. like how do you conduct an interview about a movie that makes fun of interviews.......
• the entire premise of the hunger games itself. social criticism of people's bloodlust as well as the obsession with reality television and wanting to know every single detail of a stranger's life.
• and even though the love triangle has been played in probably every single teen fiction series, i rather like peeta's part. he's innocent. in reality, i identify with gale and katniss. but peeta is like the symbol of innocence, and more than just the rival love interest. kind of fresh. fresh is nice.

also

• whomever taught suzanne collins how to use commas obviously did not receive a legit teaching certificate. you don't have to put a comma after every "at least"!!!!!!! then there were times when there should have been a comma. bothers me so much....