Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins

In the sea of young adult fiction out there, Gregor the Overlander makes for one of the more pleasant anchorages. The book starts off quickly with Gregor and his two-year-old sister "Boots" falling through a gateway into the Underworld, a sprawling underground land populated by giant talking cockroaches, rats, bats, and spiders, along with several thousand pale humans descended from a 17th century "overlander" who led his small group into the Underworld then sealed the entrances. This descendant left a string of prophecies, including one which seems to point directly to Gregor as the one who may or may not save the humans in their ongoing war with the rats (as is often the case with prophecies, this one is somewhat lacking in clarity). Gregor has a more personal issue at stake; it turns out his father, who had disappeared a few years earlier, had also fallen through i... Read More

Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins

The Prophecy of Bane continues the strengths displayed in Suzanne Collins' first book in the series, Gregor the Overlander. The book moves along quickly and smoothly with few if any slow spots; the major characters, if not minutely detailed, have enough personality and reality to hold one's interest and concern; and the setting, which as in the first is probably the weakest element in terms of vividness, is at least interesting enough in general terms so that its lack of detail is not much of a flaw.

As in book one, Gregor enters the Underworld to save a family member. In book one it was his father; here it is his little sister Boots. One sees the freshness and originality early on in the book as the quest quickly changes from what the reader first assumes it will be — the search for Boo... Read More

Gregor and the Curse of the Warmbloods by Suzanne Collins

The third book in the Gregor series picks up shortly after the last one ends and quickly tosses the reader into familiar territory. Once again, Gregor takes up a task underground in order to save a family member. In the first book it was his father, in book two his sister Boots, and now it's his mother, who in accompanying him down to the underground contracted a seemingly fatal disease that threatens to wipe out the warmbloods.

As foretold by a prophecy (another familiar element from the other books), Gregor joins a group made up of rats, crawlers, humans, and bats who have put aside (somewhat) their hatred for each other to seek the cure to this plague that strikes them all. The quest will take them deep into a dangerous forest, the only place where the plant that supposedly holds the cure grows.

The strengths of book t... Read More

Gregor and the Code of Claw by Suzanne Collins

This is the fifth and series-ending (I shy from ever using the word “final” with regard to fantasy nowadays) book in the Gregor series, one of the most original and powerful young adult fantasy series now in recent years. It is not a standalone book, so if you haven’t read the first four, you should start. Assuming you have, however, how does Code stack up?

I have to admit to some disappointment. While much of what has made Gregor such a strong series can be found here: strongly distinct characters, a quick pacing, truly moving scenes, a realistic approach to violence and its consequences seldom seen in most books (young adult or not), Code doesn’t quite match the quality of the earlier books.

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The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Suzanne Collins has already proven her talent for storytelling with her recently completed Gregor the Underlander series. In that series, she showed she was able to create strong characters, move plot along quickly, deftly control the rise and fall in tension, and create moving scenes. While there were some weak sections in the series (sometimes the pace moved too quickly, settings often could have been more detailed, and a few characters could have been more richly drawn), by the end she had crafted one of the best YA series to hit the shelves the past few years — a thoughtful, often dark, almost always rewarding series.

I'm happy to report that with book one of The Hunger Games, there is no sophomore slump. In fact, Suzanne Collins returns with a starting book that is more tightly focused, more moving, more quickly p... Read More

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

What can I say that hasn’t already been said? The Hunger Games has been getting lots of buzz, and by the time I was a few pages in, I knew it was all deserved.

And then it got better.

The Hunger Games takes place in the future, in a dystopian nation that arose from the ruins of the United States. Panem consists of twelve Districts and is ruled from a decadent Capitol. (Try Googling “Panem” to get the play on words. I’m sad to say I missed the reference while reading!) Every year, to underscore its domination of the Districts, the government demands a tribute of one girl and one boy per District. These adolescents are thrown into a vast, wilderness-filled arena, in which they fight to the death while Panem watches on television. This society is very different from our own, but just similar enough to be chilling. S... Read More

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Sometimes it is nice to be wrong. As a general rule when it comes to young adult urban fantasy I try to stay well away from the mainstream authors. The rule for me has been that if my 16-year-old is reading it and loving it, then I will steer clear of it. In the case of The Hunger Games, I was dead wrong.

Suzanne Collins' take on a post-apocalyptic North America is a cross somewhere between an Orwellian controlled series of city-states and E.E. Knight's Vampire Earth, minus the vampires. Collins does a tremendous job of giving us a bleak, harsh reality from the beginning and uses the hard facts of life to give the story a believable premise. This is not simply a heroine who happ... Read More

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The news that Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games is coming out in movie form in March 2012 finally moved me to read this book, which one of my young nephews has recommended to me with extravagant praise. That nephew is going to be a darned good literary critic when he grows up, because he’s absolutely right: The Hunger Games is an excellent adventure with plenty of depth to it.

Suzanne Collins clearly set out to make The Hunger Games a book that older as well as younger readers can enjoy. The setting is a dystopia of the future, in a world where the United States no longer exists. It has been replaced, at least in large part, by a country known as Panem. Panem consists of the Capitol (apparently somewhere around what we now know as Denver, Colorado) and 12 Districts, each with a sp... Read More

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

One of last year’s best, most compelling reads was Suzanne Collins’ dystopic The Hunger Games, in which a group of young boys and girls are sent into a large geographic area for a kill-or-be-killed TV spectacle — a sort of Running Man meets Lord of the Flies meets Survivor meets The Lottery. The book, carried along winningly by the strong main character Katniss, was suspenseful, poignant, and often breathless, ending with a clear resolution but with an obvious nod toward a sequel. That sequel is Catching Fire, and while it’s not as good as The Hunger Games, nor as breathlessly compelling (both tough standards to equal), it’s a strong follow-up.
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Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

After finishing the unputdownable The Hunger Games, I couldn’t wait to see what was in store for Katniss Everdeen and her friends in Catching Fire. As it turns out, quite a lot.

Catching Fire picks up six months after The Hunger Games left off. Katniss and Peeta have uneasily integrated themselves back into their lives and families in District 12, albeit with money and fame. Katniss is still torn between her two possible love interests: Peeta, whom she pretended to love in order to stay alive in the arena, and Gale, her childhood best friend, with whom she still hunts illegally in the woods. Then, Katniss receives a frightening visit from President Snow, who warns her that she must make her love for Peeta convincing on their upcoming Victory Tour. It seems their defiant act at the end of the Ga... Read More

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

OK, HUNGER GAMES fans, you’ve been waiting a year for this book, and the last thing you want is some @#$% reviewer spoiling the plot. So, I will do my best to give my impressions of Mockingjay with as few spoilers as possible.

When a series becomes this popular and sparks this much speculation among readers, the author’s task is extremely difficult. How to surprise a fanbase, when that fanbase has spent many months trying to guess what will happen in the final installment (and almost certainly guessed right on a few counts)? Yet Suzanne Collins succeeds admirably. There are plenty of twists in Mockingjay that I simply never saw coming, and there are other aspects of the plot that I partially guessed but that didn’t play out quite the way I thought they would.

It’s no surprise that this book sees Katniss taking ... Read More

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins has certainly been one of the most anticipated titles this year, bringing to a close the trilogy that began with The Hunger Games and continued with Catching Fire. The Hunger Games was a captivating, compelling read — one of my favorite reads that year — and Catching Fire was close to it in quality; though different in pace and tone, it maintained a strong sense of character and character growth. So does Collins manage to recapture the fire in Mockingjay? To be honest, it’s a bit mixed.

In book one, the games are, well, the games (I’ll assume you already know what the Hunger Games are). In book two, the games broaden, though by the end we’re back in the literal games... Read More