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My spoiler-free, character-based review. It does, however, contain generic quotes from throughout the book, so be warned.

Title: Why Katniss Everdeen is not your typical YA heroine
Subtitle: In other words, why Katniss rocks

I am going to break this down one quote at a time. Indirectly, this book calls a lot of young adult authors onto the carpet for lazy storytelling and limp-as-a-dishrag heroines. It’s hard to say whether or not this was deliberate, but my first quote, exhibit A, makes me think it might have been.

Exhibit A: Haymitch: “‘I want everyone to think of one incident where Katniss Everdeen genuinely moved you. Not where you were jealous of her hairstyle, or her dress went up in flames or she made a halfway decent shot with an arrow. Not where Peeta was making you like her. I want to hear one moment where she made you feel something real.’” (74)

Read this passage. If you have ever so much as fantasized about writing a novel, memorize it. It is glorious. It is an APB to authors everywhere that a character needs to be more than a blank slate. A character needs dimension and clear motivation. She needs to evoke genuine emotion, rather than merely the adrenaline thrill associated with a first kiss or romantic scene. She needs to aspire to something more than boys. Don’t tell us she is awesome without providing the narrative goods to back it up. Don’t reduce your secondary characters to a mere claque that worships everything about her and reminds the audience at every turn that she is the most amazing girl who ever lived. Show us why she is amazing.

Exhibit B: “The very notion that I’m devoting any thought to who I want presented as my lover, given our current circumstances, is demeaning” (40).

Katniss is one self-aware young lady. In key scenes, she is not whining about her romantic melodramas, but actively seeking solutions. She waits for no one to save her–she is perpetually proactive. Moreover, unlike so many young adult heroines I’ve read recently, she does not begrudge others their happiness. Despite her belief that she is “manipulative,” she genuinely cares about others. She asks Prim how she is doing and actually lets her talk. When others are happy, she becomes a lens through which we witness that happiness, never subjecting us to self-indulgent whining about her own troubles. Take that, one-sided friendships (which occur often in poorly written YA narratives).

Exhibit C: Boggs: “‘Well, you’re not perfect by a long shot. But times being what they are, you’ll have to do’” (91).

This snippet of dialogue may not seem significant, but it is a tremendous leap forward for YA literature. A character can become popular without, as I mentioned earlier, a claque of characters giving her a standing ovation every time she so much as smiles. The characters in the Hunger Games trilogy are allowed to dislike Katniss and disagree with her openly, without fear of narrative retribution later for daring to dissent.

Exhibit D Johanna: “Jealousy is certainly involved. I also think you’re a little hard to swallow. With your tacky drama and your defender-of-the-helpless act. Only it isn’t an act, which makes you more unbearable. Please feel free to take this personally” (220-1).

This should really be Exhibit C2. Again, we have a character who doesn’t particularly like Katniss, and she isn’t a villain. She isn’t vilified to sanctify Katniss. She just is. This scrap of dialogue not only pokes fun at Katniss, but at a host of YA heroines who are, simply put, “unbearable.”

Exhibit E: “Because an angry, independently thinking victor with a layer of psychological scar tissue too thick to penetrate is maybe the last person you want on your squad” (251).

Did you hear that, Bella Swan? In a believable story, if you are cold and detached from your peers while sporting a vague superiority complex, people will not like you. They will not line up to be your friend as the teens of Forks inexplicably did. Katniss knows this. She understands the ramifications of her behavior, and doesn’t expect people to pat her on the back when she is in the wrong.

Exhibit F: “And what was I, really? A poor, unstable girl with a small talent with a bow and arrow. Not a great thinker, not the mastermind of the rebellion, merely a face plucked from the rabble because I had caught the nation’s attention with my antics in the Games” (294).

Katniss has more to recommend her than most YA heroines these days, but she never, ever toots her own horn. Above, she underplays the vital role she plays in the story. Peeta says it best: “‘I think…you still have no idea. The effect you can have’” (325). She doesn’t understand what Peeta, Gale, and the reader do: that she is the rare first-person heroine that has earned her spot as the narrator of the book. No one else can tell this story better. With so many other YA stories, I find myself thinking that other characters would have made more compelling narrators. Not so here. Collins got it right on the first try.

Now, for some headline-worthy quotes:

“‘Covers will be blown. People may die’” (Haymitch, 164).

“‘There will be no survivors’” (Katniss, 99).

“The Mockingjay will not lose her voice” (178).

So, without divulging any plot details, I will say that this book was phenomenal. There are quotes about warfare and society that I would love to share, but they contain vaguely spoilerous material. This series truly got better as it progressed. I gave Hunger Games three stars, Catching Fire four, and Mockingjay five. Congratulations, Suzanne Collins, on writing a trilogy that actually gained momentum as it went.