Reading with the Lights On: The Hunger Games Chapters 4-6

Hi, In case you’re not sure what this is, call an adult in the room and ask them to explain it in small words to you.

This is a retrospect of The Hunger Games by Samantha Collins.  I’m reading it and writing about it so you don’t have to. 

The Hunger Games

Chapters 4-6

Fashion, Chocolate, and Sarah McClachlan

When we last left off, our heroine Katniss McMeow-Meow was on a train with her rival/partner/smoochie-woofkin Peeta. (they kissed, called it, right?)

On this train they get to know each other, as well as the drunken winner of a previous Hunger Game, Haymitch...  This guy is meant to be the “comic relief” in these opening scenes.  He gives us the bodily function and slapstick comedy that a novel about teen murder so desperately needs.

…like if they added a farting clown in the attic with Anne Frank…

…Anyways, Chapter 4 is pretty much about the kids eating on a train, and talking, and being fascinated with hot chocolate and bots every flavor beans…and… wait… what book am I reading again?

Oh…then we come to Chapter 5. Which might as well be titled, “Extreme Make-Over, Guerilla Warfare Edition.”

Katniss meets the last stylist she’ll ever ask, “does this make me look fat” to, Cinn.

(short for Cinnamon Toast-Crunchlestein [jew?])

Cinn, combines cool synthetic flames and a sleek uni-tard, to make  Katniss look less like a sacrificial tribute from District 12, and more like a Gay Pride float from District 69.

The audience loves Katniss’s new look.  And many of the other girls would murder for a nice pair of shoes like that.

They probably will…

Then the characters eat again...because each chapter has a page dedicated to what the kids are eating.  It’s like the book was designed to easily be adapted to a dinner-theater.

Kitty-Kitty-Bang-Bang and Peeta have to look good though, because they want to nab a rich sponsor who will support them when they go into the arena to fight.  It’s like those infomercials where you can adopt a child for pennies a day and they’ll send you a letter and a picture; Except instead of a letter and a picture, they’ll kill all the other kids in their village and let you watch it on T.V.  (hmmmm... “In the Arms of an Angel” is a great fight song)

Now Katniss is getting worried about Peeta.  He’s just acting so darn nice.  She’s realizing that it’s hard to kill somebody who’s nice to you.  (believe me, I’ve tried)… So Katniss tries to distance herself from him.  Although she tries pull away from him, Peeta goes and does something to help her out despite their opposite goals and desires.  He’s like the Hunger Games equivalent of a Mormon.

We spend more time watching them eat.  As a new character called an Avox is introduced.  These are the slaves (more or less) of the Capital City who’s tongues are cut-off (Thus preventing catchy yet treacherous slave-songs).  Katniss recognizes one of them as the girl she potentially could have saved in the woods.  Sadly, Katniss couldn’t save her or the boy she was running with because the government, in all of their subtlety, captured them with a hovercraft that shoots harpoons.  HARPOONS!  When you run out of nets to capture people with, when is a harpoon the next alternative?

Chapters 4-6 were interesting enough…but I think the good stuff is still somewhere beyond the horizon.  I really just want to slap the food out of their hands and send them into the ring already!  But I’ll have to be patient… too bad I can’t have the Avox girl sing me “follow the drinking gourd” to pass the time…