No Bosses, No Boyfriends

bell hooks got quickly tossed aside when Sarah SK finally pushed the first book of this YA trilogy into my hands and I surprisingly couldn’t stop myself from devouring it.

Now, it should be noted that I’m not the most avid reader of young adult fiction.  My poor mother has been trying to get me to read the Harry Potters for years now and Twilight just seems like a creepy waste of time.  (I don’t care what you say.)  But, I take SK’s opinions very seriously and since I’ve finished it, have passed it onto my roommate, my BF, strangers on the street, anyone who’ll listen.

The Hunger Games follows Katniss Everdeen, a seventeen year old woman from a poor district of the nation of Panem (a post-apocalyptic distopian USA) through her performance as a contestant on a compulsory televised teen-aged battle to the death, her political enlightenment and radicalization, her two simultaneous romances, and finally her role as the figurehead of the leftist revolution.

Obviously, it’s an effortless read.  Katniss is a badass.  It’s equally critical of capitalism as it is of the power seeking left.  There’s all sorts of tantalizing softcore that leaves you jonesing for some erotic fanfic–if you were secure enough in your “coolness” to actually allow yourself to indulge in it, that is!  And, except for the super boring, super hetero-mono-normative let down ending, is PROBABLY the perfect distopian tale ever.

But, what do I know?  Who else has read it?  Any thoughts?

Tags: class, feminism, fighting, revolution