The Hunger Games

I finally persuaded my husband to get an e-book copy of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins for our Nooks. He's been half-disinterested in reading it. I hadn't made up my mind until I considered it for a little while. Everyone I know who has read the books--every last one of them--LOVED it. That's never happened with any book I've heard my friends speak about before. Some of them LOVED the Harry Potter series, a lot of them thought it was too shallow for them. Some of them LOVE the Dresden Files books, many are lukewarm-ish to the ones they've read. Ayn Rand, most of my friends actually really hate her books. There's a couple of people who like them. All the books we were ever assigned to read in classes. There's never once been a case where absolutely everyone agreed. But everyone I've spoken to LOVED The Hunger Games. And I finally caved in to peer pressure, and started reading the first book last night. I am currently five pages away from the end. I can honestly say, it isn't just the story line that drew me in. The story is mesmerizing, don't get me wrong, but the voice with which it's written caught me completely off guard. I enjoy first-person narratives, and particularly this one, because it's a lot less like a story and a lot more like a conversation with my sister. The one part of it my husband and I discussed was from a very early point in the book. I'd been reading a free sample, and I could only describe the author as very blunt. My husband was intrigued by one of the subtleties the author had laid for us. After talking about it for a moment, we discovered he'd used the word "subtle" to describe the same exact sentence in the book that made me call it "blunt". If that makes any sense. Anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, at least as much as one CAN enjoy a book about a post-apocalyptic fight to the death involving children. And I think it's mostly because the way Collins tells the story (through Katniss's eyes) feels so very raw. So. That's today's odd little bit of sunshine.