From my perspective: Hunger Games Trilogy

I finally finished reading Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins. I had a few difficulties while getting a hold of these books, but now finally I finished them. It took me while to sit down and write my impressions after going through everything (I’m one of those people who identify with characters or at least pretend to live in the same world they are living in). There is the first part of the third book coming out as a movie and I refused to watch any of the movies until I read the books. Now that I read them, I can watch movies too.

The story follows Katniss Everdeen, sixteen years old girl who provides for her family ever since her father died. She’s the one that takes care of her mother and younger sister. They live in dystopian world, they are poor and the only thing that keeps them alive is Katniss’s abilities to hunt. Their country organizes so called Hunger Games which are basically a reality show where teenager fight till only one of them is alive, simply to warn and entertain their citizens every year.

This year, Katniss takes place in Hunger Games to replace her sister, for her to avoid danger. Books follow Katniss on the journey where she first struggles to survive Hunger Games where odds aren’t really in her favor, but also a civil war in her country where citizens aren’t really happy with the lifestyle.

When you think about it, 12 districts, every specialized in certain area of production to keep their country running. Some of them are richer thanks to their relationship with Capitol, while some are so poor that if they haven’t had black market of food people would die of hunger. The borders between districts are pretty unbreakable, I got the impression that you can’t really move from one district to another, especially since they learn in school about the main discipline of their district so if you’d move, you wouldn’t be educated to survive in another district. Anyway, that’s just something I thought about on the side.

Katniss is difficult character. If she was a real world person, she’d be antisocial, stubborn, caring and loving for people around her, ready to do anything to protect them and fight anyone. It would not have been easy to get along with her, maybe not even like her because you wouldn’t be able to understand her. However, in the book, you look at things from her perspective what make it a bit easier to understand her.

Since she’s the one carrying out the plot, it makes it that much interesting. She is strong, she doesn’t care about fashion (one of the reasons I wasn’t able to identify with her) but that’s because her whole life was struggle to survive. She doesn’t like to be controlled or told what to do. Imagine just what would you do if you were in her shoes.

The plot is something new for me, very interesting, diverse and dynamic. I like how there is romantic aspect to it all, but it’s by no means too dominant, it’s just there to accompany the rest of the story which revolves about survival and twisted government policy.

Every next book is better than previous one and each is kind of different. I’m not sure how to explain it thoroughly so I’ll just leave it at that.

I’m positively surprised with these books. I don’t want to spoil experience for others so I won’t be going in further details; although there are so many interesting points that even if I wanted I wouldn’t know where to start. I should probably find some book club to join so I can discuss these things.

I hope movies are just as good, but I’m not ready to watch yet. I need time for things to settle within me, to be sure in the original impression before I join it with the movie impression.

Have you read these books and/or watched the movies? What do you think about them? What’s your favorite part?

Be my book club please :)

Love, A.

From my perspective: The Fault in Our Stars (the book)

Greška u našim zvijezdama // The Fault in Our Stars

John Green

Ovo je moje mišljenje o knjizi koju sam pročitala, kakav je dojam na mene ostavila i kako sam se osjećala čitajući. Čitanje knjige je za mene emotivan i intelektualan proces, pa se zato ovdje fokusiram na način pisanja, humor, emocije, događaje i razvoj priče. Naravno, prokomentiram i kraj jer je danas teško naići na neki zadovoljavajuć koji paše ostatku priče.

Engleska verzija se može malo razlikovati zato što nije čisti prijevod nego ponovo pisanje.

This is my opinion of the book I've read and the impression I got from reading it. It is greatly affected by the feeling I got while reading it. Reading is as much emotional process for me as it is intellectual, that's why I'm focusing on the way of writing, humor, emotions, character developement, events and the course of the story. Of course, I always comment the ending as well, just because it is hard to come across the satisfying version that matches the rest of the story.

I didn't read this book in english language.

Prije više od godinu dana je najavljeno, ili je možda već bilo u tijeku, snimanje filma prema knjizi Johna Greena "The fault in our stars" ili naša verzija "Greška u našim zvijezdama". Samu najavu su pratile rijeke hvale za spomenutu knjigu, a po izlasku filma i za njega. 

Za tu knjigu sam dotad čula kao za jedno od djela spomenutog autora o kojem sam već prilično znala zahvaljujući uprizorenim verzijama ostalih njegovih djela. Inače su djela ovog autora mahom ljubavne priče, prilično originalnog konteksta i (što nakon čitanja ove knjige vidim) prilično dobro pisane. Nije to baš žanr kojem sam inače sklona u čitanju, ali čisto da bi imala svoj pogled na nešto obožavano i hvaljeno diljem svijeta, uhvatila sam se čitanja ovih 250ak stranica koje sam pročitala u jednom danu. Nisam sigurna jesam li to uspjela zbog moje žeđi za čitanjem ili zato što me se knjiga toliko dojmila. 

Mala digresija: smatram pomalo tragičnim da je danas neko književno djelo publicizirano (u smislu šireg obavještavanja javnosti) tek po izlasku njegove filmske verzije. Mnogo puta sam se našla u situaciji da ne znam što čitati pa sam (uglavnom bez većeg uspjeha) pretraživala internetske stranice za prijedloge, knjižičarke u lokalnoj knjižnici nisu bile od velike pomoći, a okolina je još manje zainteresirana za ovakvu aktivnost. Netko tko voli čitanje barem upola koliko i ja zna kolika je vrijednost u preporuci dobre knjige. Tako je i ovaj put prijedlog za čitanje stigao od reklame za film.

Iako sam imala u planu čitanje spomenutog djela ili bilo što od istog autora pošto sam čula mnogo pohvala, pogledala nekoliko filmova snimljenih na temelju njegovih knjiga, te općenitog oduševljenja javnosti upravo ovom konkretnom knjigom, krenula sam nakon što mi je prijateljica iznijela svoj dojam. 

Riječ je o ljubavi koja se u vrlo kratkom vremenu razvila između dvoje tinejdžera, jedno u fazi borbe s rakom, drugo u NTR fazi (ni traga raku, moglo bi se reći izliječen), borbi s bolešću i njihovim avanturama. Knjiga je pisana u prvom licu, iz perspektive bolesne protagonistice i njenog života koji je u trenutku dobio novi smjer samo zbog jednog poznanstva. Djelo je fikcija pa je teško nekom laiku poput mene zaključiti koliko su određene činjenice u vezi bolesti točne, ali ideja nije loša. Razvoj cijele situacije u pogledu koraka na koje se likovi odlučuju mi je originalan i zanimljiv, iako mi je kraj bio pomalo predvidiv. Sviđa mi se humor i sarkazam u karakterima i izjavama likova.

Ono što me kočilo da se poistovjetim s likovima i potpuno uživam u knjizi je manjak opisa u nekim dijelovima, a višak istih u drugim, što je rezultiralo dojmom kao da likovi u nisu dovoljno razvijeni, a neke situacije pak predetaljno opisane. Također mi se nije svidio vrlo kratak period u kojem se sve odvija. Možda je baš ta kratkoća bila autorov naum da pokaže kako malo treba ljubavi da se razvije. Neki bi to možda totalno smetnuli s uma, no ja nikako nisam mogla. Možda zbog toga nisam u potpunosti doživjela onu emotivnu stranu priče po kojoj je ovaj autor najpoznatiji (moja prijateljica je pak tu stranu iskusila).

Sve u svemu, zanimljivo štivo za pročitati, ubiti neispunjen dan i izgubiti se u stranicama za onog tko to voli, ali nikako nisam impresionirana. Svakako bi htjela pročitati još nešto od istog autora da mogu malo uspoređivati i dobiti bolji dojam o njegovu radu.

Jeste li pročitali ovu knjigu ili pogledali film? Kakvi su vaši dojmovi? Jeste li čitali nešto drugo od ovog autora? Koje vam se djelo najviše svidjelo? Imate li kakvu preporuku za čitanje?

Just as the trailer for the same-name-movie came out, worldwide hysteria for this book overwhelmed many social networks and I got interested: what is it all about?

I knew very well that The Fault in Our Stars is a book by the popular writer John Green whose novels inspired many movies I actually watched, however I never read any of his books.

Seeing how crazy people were about this book and how they couldn’t wait for the movie, I decided to finally read the book (although I wanted to read something of Green’s work since long ago). My good friend just finished reading and told me how emotionally touching it was for her so I got even more interested.

I read the book in the course of one day and I loved the sarcasm and the humor of characters, way of writing and the course of the story (where they went and what they did). However, despite the originality of the situation, I found the ending predictable, but which ending isn’t?

I’m the type of person who really loves reading and I like to get in the role of the main character in order to experience the book and the point of view. Here, I was neither emotionally involved nor touched, probably because of the short timeframe in which everything happened for the characters. I suppose many people haven’t even noticed it, or didn’t pay much attention to it, or didn’t care, but I did. Maybe writers intention was to show that love can happen in very short time and weirdest of situations? Also, I got the feeling that some parts were to widely described while others not enough. I had an impression that I was missing a paragraph at times.

I still enjoyed reading this book and I’ll read more of his work for comparison and to build my opinion of his work.

Did you read this book or watched the movie? Perhaps both? What is your opinion? What do you think of other works by this author? Would you recommend me something? Do you have any recommendations?

Love, A.