The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy [Paperback]

Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy [Paperback]

Product Details

Reading level: Ages 14 and up
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Smart Pop; 1 edition (April 5, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1935618040
ISBN-13: 978-1935618041
Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

By : Leah Wilson (Editor), Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Contributor), Mary Borsellino (Contributor), Sarah Rees Brennan (Contributor), Terri Clark (Contributor), Bree Despain (Contributor), Adrienne Kress (Contributor), Cara Lockwood (Contributor), Elizabeth M. Rees (Contributor), Carrie Ryan (Contributor), Ned Vizzini (Contributor), Lili Wilkinson (Contributor), Blythe Woolston (Contributor), Sarah Darer Littman (Contributor)
List Price : ~~$12.95~~
Price : $9.93
You Save : $3.02 (23%)

Customer Reviews

I ripped through this little book in a day and found that it only deepened and textured my understanding of The Hunger Games! The trilogy, understood through the eyes of these YA essayists, is so much more than just an action tale or even just a story about rising up against your oppressors or finding your voice or etc.
For instance, in this 13-essay mini-anthology, you'll find a piece about the role of fashion and appearances in everything from a Capitol-constructed death game to an American presidential election to the courtroom visits of Lindsay Lohan and Lil Kim, a piece examining how choosing love is an act of political defiance, and an essay treating The Hunger Games as a cautionary tale against the screwy science that produced tracker jackers and the other mutts of Panem. There's even an essay addressing the psychological roots of the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder almost every character suffers by the end of Mockingjay. So...fashion, politics, science and psychology in the span of four essays!
If you love The Hunger Games, I can guarantee you'll love at least one piece in the book. My own favorite was the book's first essay "Why so hungry for the Hunger Games?" which examines which themes laced throughout the books really capture the imagination. It also delivers a wonderful analysis of Katniss, Peeta, and Gale separately as well as illuminating what each romance means in the larger picture of revolution-torn dystopia.
Sigh. I just wish I could read them all over again for the first time...

This book was amazing. It really added to the whole Hunger Games experience, if possible. I fell in love with the Hunger Games trilogy and figured I would read this. It sounded interesting and I was dying for more.
I didn't expect this.
All these different authors wrote essays about different topics in the Hunger Games trilogy such as style and symbolism, reality and unreality. It literally blew me away, and my respect for Suzanne Collins and her writing skyrocketed.
I immensely enjoyed every essay....except one.
I felt the third to last essay written by Sarah Darer Littman didn't meet the score that the essays before it in the book had set. In fact, it didn't come close. When she actually mentioned the Hunger Games or anything about it (in passing) it was something we had already learned or could actually deduce ourselves while reading the books.
So how did she fill up a fifteen page essay? She pretty much mentioned everything America has done wrong, what our previous president (Bush) did wrong, or her hate mail to the newspaper she writes political articles for and why all those people are WRONG. I bought this book to learn more about the Hunger Games. I DID NOT buy this book to hear about the letter she received from an American Veteran from WWII telling her she needed to keep writing forever and ever. Which I also learned in this article is taped above her desk.
I am sorry to those of you who may have thought her article was genious, but I prefer to not know famous people's political views because it changes my view of THEM. But Sarah Darer Littman talked of nothing else and in my book, that seems to be asking for my criticism. Apologies.
THE GIRL WHO WAS ON FIRE should NOT be read before the Hunger Games trilogy but should definitely be read after. It was, in one word, BRILLIANT. (: