Thank you for the fan art in the Featured Image, above, by ConfusedChameleon. This book is actually a prequel to the original series, The Hunger Games, number 1, set sixty-four years before the first book, in which we meet Katniss in book number 1. We see the hero of this book, or the anti-hero, for most of the story, as the villain from the main series, Snow. Well before he becomes President Snow, resetting the clock, and destroying the evidence from the 10th Hunger Games. Very much akin, if different intent to the Holocene Calendar: 10 ADD is year 10 After the Dark Days, also the year of the 10th Hunger Games, with Year 0 ADD being the end of the war/(first) rebellion -I love that she creates a new calendar system, but I cannot seem to find where I initially saw this, as I don’t seem to be able to find it in the book. And no, when he was president, it did not in fact rain champagne every Tuesday, at least not in any of the Districts. I read this book several times, and the first time I do not recall liking it, but this time, I loved it. Must have been the translation. For Babylon 5 fans, It occurred to me that the young Snow is much like the pre-Eye Londo Mollari (of Babylon 5): both are subjected to trials that will later define their futures by powerful and sadistic forces intent on shaping the world in their images. Both are vulnerable in some way, when found, and then placed in disastrous positions of power, causing tremendous suffering for many years to come. Both even find a sort of redemption, by sharing some level of truth with change-makers who will use it to help win a different future.
Interesting parallels, and interesting how vicious down-on-their-luck narcissists can be, and how they can be directed by ruthless powerful older others. Not that this excuses either of them, in any case. Even when guided by horrid examples like this:
“… operated by Avoxes —
tongueless workers made the best workers, or so his grandmother said…”
This book is even better upon reading again. I will have to incorporate my new reading updates soon. I do admit to being a little skeptical at first about this prequel, Collins has done an excellent job developing sympathy for a protagonist that we know later on, decades later, is a ruthless villain. What I also particularly appreciated about this book is how she shows the horrors which a civilian population goes through during wartime. And she also shows how authoritarian leaders justify their cruelty. An excellent surprise ending as well. Maybe not surprising come to think of it but it was an excellent twist ending.
“…human beings? Because who we are determines the type of governing we need. Later on, I hope you can reflect and be honest with yourself about what you learned tonight.” Dr. Gaul began to wrap his wound in gauze. “And a few stitches in your arm is a cheap price to pay for it.”
Right. I can now understand even better why the Bible prohibited making children pay for the sins of their fathers and vice versa. No, this is not correct: who or what we human beings are determines not the type of governing we need, but rather, the type of education we need in order to be compassionate. It’s fascinating to see how in this series and in Harry Potter, children are made to pay for their ancestors ways of being, good or bad. And she does an excellent job at entertaining while also setting atmosphere, as it feels like the author is setting us up for the protagonist to lose his closest Ally fairly early on. Also from earlier pages, I really feel it’s important the way the author is showing us how it feels to be a population used to all of the best comforts, Whose homes have now been turned into a war zone.
I find it odd that Snow lacks the mental flexibility to imagine other ways to control the chaos of human nature, like using education to get buy-in to a decent social contract upholding Human Rights. He is clever, and is being taught to use his cleverness in the service of narcissism, rather than the Common Good. But he could have Done Better.
Project Do Better offers some ideas on that.
Phase II.
Shira
Action Items:
1.) Dear Readers, share your thoughts on this last, and first, book in The Hunger Games series, please.
2.) Write a story, post or comment that uses those thoughts.
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Click on the menu of the ShiraDest website, which is at the top of this book review, to see pages leading to links to articles for:
Learning through story:
Babylon5, Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector, Sihirli Annem, Lupin, La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or El Ministerio del Tiempo Reviews
Learning via Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,
or
Learning from Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing (including Ann & Anna…)
Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter. This work is my personal way (as opposed to founding the Project, overall) of contributing to building tools that can help increase empathy and compassion in our world. Story, as part of how we see our world, helps us make sense of and define our actions in this world. And remember how important story is also as part of this project. Let’s Do Better.
Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS
Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
emphasizes all kinds of health care, which one may well need to think of after reading this book, especially for public mental health care, and public transportation, which clearly ties in with public health in various ways, but after reading this book, and I do hope that it is not available in English, even if it is well written, you may well need to take public transportation. Being so impacted by a book that it is not safe to drive is one more good reason for us to have good and accessible mass transit!
which was a wonderful read!
which was highly enjoyable, but a bit tooth grating in it’s treatment of Islam, (although not nearly as bad as the kinds of comments made by Jules Verne in some of his works, like the one where the old Pasha decides to go all the way around the Black Sea in order to avoid paying a new tariff for crossing the Bosporus…) that Dumas sometimes tries to work in material about that religion, but doesn’t always get it right. But not in a way that makes is unreadable, fortunately. This duology is absolutely worth downloading (these two volumes of his book, as with all of Dumas’ works, are available freely from various sources, at least in French, as they are all in the Public Domain, now) and even learning French, if necessary, in order to read. I had no idea how talented a writer of horror/fantasy Dumas 
Context, Thought, and Learning: ShiraDest Offers Project Do Better 