A Void at the end of the Tunnel

For the past few years I have been feeling a bit at a loss without a new Harry Potter book on the horizon. It has been almost 3 years since I stood in line to purchase my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I wanted to read slowly, but the 784 pages, even as they ticked past bringing me closer and closer to the end, were too tempting to put down. In one marathon session, I holed myself up in my room and walked the plank. Since that July day, no book has held me so firmly in it's grip and I had feared none ever would.

Not long ago, a friend of mine (thanks, Cis) mentioned how much she had enjoyed The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. She read the first and second books of the trilogy over the course of one weekend. It was a fascinating concept, a dystopian future society that requires child-sacrifices each year and reveles in viewing it on live television. "Survivor" meets "American Gladiators" but with real weapons, not NERF balls and you don't get voted off, you die.

(Harry Potter Spoiler Alert)

On her recommendation, I picked up the first book. When I got it home I began reading. From 7pm to 1am I didn't stop. It wasn't Harry Potter but it was fascinating and I was hooked. I even wept for one character nearly as much as I had for poor Dobby.

Unlike Hogwarts, Panem isn't a place you want to visit and there are no Ron Weasleys to lighten the load. Rawling started out with lightness and humor, only getting truly dark in the last few books. Collins, on the other hand, plunges readers directly into her dark and damaged society, and rarely lets us up for air.

The book is not without it's faults. The writing is okay, but where J.K. Rowling's over-use of adverbs had once driven me mad, Suzanne Collins' odd apostrophes are now giving me a conniption. I love it anyway. A week later I got the second book, Catching Fire, and finished it nearly as quickly. I am now eagerly awaiting the final chapter, due out on August 24th this year. It is good to have something worth waiting for, but what will I do on August 25th?!