BLOGGING THE HUNGER GAMES, pt. 9: Katniss On A Hot Tin Roof

Hey, so it's taken a while for this book to grab me, but I think it finally did. And I'm happy about that! I've been reading those blurbs on the back of the book from people like John Green (oh hey here's a picture of me with his autograph), calling it “perfectly paced,” and I was kinda like “what?” I didn't see what the big deal is. And now I sort of do!

This chapter concerns the pre-game interviews that take place two nights after the Gamemaker's scores are released. The Hunger Games have a long preseason, huh? When we last left our heroes, Peeta had elected to be coached separately for the duration of said preseason. Ouch, Peeta! I feel like there is a Smith's song about being hurt by the son of a baker, but I can't remember which one it is. “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out”? Meaning a pilot light in an oven? That can't be right.

Chapter 9

Katniss goes through two paragraphs of rapidfire inner turmoil after hearing the news about Peeta. But in the end she concludes that it's probably a positive thing, as it will put most of her inner turmoil to rest. (Oh how wrong you are, kid.)

“Good,” I say. “So what's the schedule?”

Here we see how practiced Katniss's cold, unfeeling act is—this chapter picks up seconds after the other one ended, but in between Katniss cycles through several emotions and thoughts. It's a very nice effect produced mostly by a simple chapter break. So after breakfast Katniss goes off with Effie, who gives her a crash course in poise. Expect a montage in the movie: Katniss falling down in heels, Katniss trying to smile while she speaks and grimacing by accident, and so on and so on. Later that day Haymitch takes over interview prep, but rather than helping much he just gets frustrated and drinks (understandably). He's not sure what angle to take with Katniss (let her be on top, that's what I say).

“[Peeta] has a sort of self-deprecating humor naturally,” says Haymitch. “Whereas when you open your mouth, you come across as more sullen and hostile.”
“I do not!” I say.

Hahaha. Katniss, you tend to assume everyone has bizarre ulterior motives when they interact with you. “And what do you REALLY mean by that?” After a few failed hours with Haymitch, Katniss goes to her room and trashes it in a fit of rage. YES! ROCK AND ROLL! It's short lived, though. That redheaded Avox girl shows up for turndown service and Katniss helps her clean the mess. Then our narrator apologizes for not saving her when she (sort of but not really) had the chance. The Avox notes the obvious (I mean not out loud, but with like, gestures) fact that Katniss would just be an Avox too if she'd done anything, and Katniss realizes that's probably true but still feels like a bitch. They have a nice moment together (I'm not going to make a lesbian sex joke because NO TONGUE!) and, uh, I guess that plot line is resolved?

Next day Cinna takes over the My Fair Lady duties and succeeds where Haymitch failed by saying, basically “You're not a cunt, you're just a cunt around Haymitch.” The (mostly bogus) realization puts a spring in Katniss's step, and she and Cinna resolve that honesty is the best policy on the interview stage. Cinna will be up on the dais, and he tells her to look at him when she talks, to answer like she's talking to a friend. Also: picture everyone naked! Act like you are in a room full of your naked friends! Except Peeta, that might be weird.

Then Cinna rolls out her dress, which is a “covered in reflective precious gems” in a flame-like pattern.

The slightest movement gives me the impression I am engulfed in tongues of fire.

Maybe we should get Cinna a therapist, no? I mean, this is getting kind of ridiculous. I'm sort of surprised his interview strategy wasn't “what if you keep a bunch of lighter fluid in your mouth and then light a match?”

That night Katniss takes the stage with the other tributes in front of a screaming crowd. The interviews are conducted by a Dick Clark-like figure named Caesar Flickman whose appearance has also remained unchanged in forty years of broadcasting. We again get a vague sense that body modification is pretty extreme in the future, but Katniss could as easily be describing current, Montag-ian levels. And the outfits/hair colors would seem ridiculous (Flickman's got blue hair and lips) if we weren't living in the era of Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry. The future is now! I went to a restaurant last night where they took orders on iPads!

Every one of these tributes is underage, right? Because Katniss describes the girl tribute from District 1's “see-through gold gown” and I was like hey! But then I was like HEYYYYYYY...and suddenly I'm seeing all of Katniss's talk about half-naked tributes in a creepy child-beauty pageant kind of way and not just the normal sexy objectification way. We hear briefly of the other interviews: one boy is a “ruthless killing machine,” one girl is “cunning.” Rue gets interviewed and explains that her advantage is that she's difficult to catch. I'd make a relatively innocent playing hard to get joke but again KIDS EWWWW. Then it's Katniss's turn.

And guess what? She's perfectly charming! She says her favorite part of the Capitol is the lamb stew. She makes a joke about how scary Cinna's fire dress was. Then she shows off her new dress, twirling around for the audience and giggling. GIGGLING!? Even (or maybe especially) Katniss can't believe it. At the end Flickman gets solemn and asks about Prim and the moment Katniss volunteered, but she doesn't say much beyond that she promised Prim she'd win. Then it's Peeta's turn. Oh god, it's Peeta's turn.

"Handsome lad like you. There must be some special girl. Come on, what's her name?" says Caesar.

Peeta sighs. "Well, there is this one girl. I've had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I'm pretty sure she didn't know I was alive until the reaping. "

Uh-oh. Get out of there Katniss!

"Winning...won't help in my case," says Peeta"

"Why ever not?" says Caesar, mystified.

Peeta blushes beet red and stammers out. "Because...because...she came here with me."

Well, okay, so that happened.

Stray Notes & Observations

• So this marks the end of Book I: The Tributes. Next time we start Book II: The Hunger Games. What is the advantage of breaking a book up into books? It seems to vary from work to work. In Breaking Dawn it's there to mark three separate arcs (well, two arcs and then a final morass) but also to indicate shifts in narration. We're sticking with Katniss for Book 2. The Hunger Games are about to begin, but a more understandable breaking point would therefore have been like, the moment Katniss gets dropped into the arena. So why now? I suppose we will see.
• I didn't watch the MTV Music Video Awards, but I did check out the Hunger Games teaser trailer that premiered there. Pretty cool, I thought! And that's all I thought. It was pretty short.
• Y'all are probably back to school, huh? How's that going?

No Church In The Wild: An Advice Column

I always seem to attract women already in relationships. It's become somewhat of a problem because I'd like to get into a serious relationship. How can I break the cycle I'm in and find a nice girl to settle down with?

It kind of sounds like God is giving you lemons and you're just stubbornly refusing to set up a threesome at your lemonade stand, buddy. These women are coming on to you? First of all: I'd like to know what kind of cologne you're using. Secondly: You must be black right? Oh god, that sounds so racist! But you're definitely black. I'm so flattered a black person is asking for my advice, first time out! Wow!

OK, so you're an infidelity magnet and you want to reverse the polarity of your field. This is pretty easy: You have to avoid places where you're likely to find girls in relationships. So stop picking up girls at the Bridal Emporium and the maternity ward, is what I'm saying. I know, I know, they're soooo good to go, but don't! There are also less obvious pickup spots you should avoid. Like, if you are at a store where silverware is sold, GET THE FUCK OUT. Literally no one buys silverware except for people who are married or on the fast-track to matrimony. Ditto mattress stores (single people just fuck on cots, or the floor) and lingerie stores (single girls don't have to bother with fancy bras and panties; literally anything, or nothing, will work. Plus that was kind of a weird place to pick up chicks anyway, girls probably thought you were a pervert).

Where should you go instead? There are obvious hotspots for singles: clubs, speed-dating clinics, pharmacies. But another good idea is to check the obituary section for places where memorial services are being held and search for a key phrase: "he is survived by his wife." TRUST ME ON THIS ONE.

I'm sorry you're going through this, I really am. I feel your pain. I mean, I'm married, but I had a really hard time finding an apartment over these last few months. All of the good ones were taken and plenty of landlords seemed to just be leading me on. But in the end my cousin tipped me off to a place that was opening up in her building, and now here I am. So I guess what I am saying is, if the rest of my advice fails you, just ask your cousin!

What do you do about a best friend who lives with you, but never cleans up after herself?

How hot is she? Maybe just let her get away with it? No, but seriously, DON'T YOU HATE THAT SHIT? I feel bad for you. Roommates who are always like, making smoothies and shit and then never cleaning the blender and just letting that raspberry gunk just petrify on the blade ARE THE WORST. And then you have to throw out the blender, and you think to yourself "Oh, I'll just buy a new blender and keep it in my room." And you do for like a day but then every time you look at it sitting on your dresser you just feel like SUCH A DICK so you finally bring it back out and let her have at it and the cycle just REPEATS and you get into such a LATHER and then you just RINSE. Whoa, what happened there? Sorry, I'm just really frustrated on your behalf!

Now most people in your situation get passive-aggressive. And that never works. But I'm not going to tell you to just have a heartfelt conversation instead. And I'm not going to tell you to create a chore calendar and hold them accountable for their chores. That won't work either! I'm of the opinion that passive-aggression only fails because it never goes far enough. Therefore I recommend like, fucking medieval passive-aggression. Don't just leave her dirty dishes in her room; put the dirty dishes IN HER BED, under the covers! And then jump on the bed so all the dishes break and her bed is full of old food and broken glass! When you find her dirty laundry on the floor of the bathroom, sell it on E-Bay to the creepiest perverts you can find! And give them her email address! Make that cunt suffer!

Or maybe just don't move in with friends in the first place. It's usually a bad idea. I mean, living together is not like hanging out but just for longer; there's lots of mundane day-to-day shit (dishes, bills, fucking smoke alarms) required for running a household that is just corrosive for friendships. Move in with someone you hate!

My boyfriend of 2 months is terribly clingy and insecure. As my time to move away to university approaches he's been getting worse and worse. I recently threatened to break it off but then he panicked and said he'll change. I want to believe him but I'm starting to doubt everything. I'm thinking our problems will just worsen with the distance between us. Do you think it's worth trying to make it work or should we both just move on?

Oh, it's going to be HELL ON EARTH. But I still think you should give it a shot for the first few weeks. Here's why:

I mean, first of all, you obviously care enough about this dude to ask. If you 100% wanted to kick him to the curb you just WOULD. So you owe it to yourself to try and make it work because if you give up prematurely you might kick yourself later (if say, you're next BF is EVEN MORE clingy and insecure). The second reason is pretty obvious, too: Skype sex. The third reason is the least obvious but most important: it's cool to be off the market when you first get to college. Guys like the dude from question 1 will pine after you--unattainability increases demand, just ask an economist like Tim Geithner (he has a crush on Michelle Obama). So when the ax does finally fall on Mr. Clingy, make sure you go cry somewhere in public. If you aren't actually sad, just fake it. Splash some water on your face, rub your eyes a little, and storm through the student union. Rumors will fly, and guys will be emailing you late at night like "Need a shoulder to cry on, baby?" Of course by "shoulder" they mean "cock" and by "cry" they mean "suck," but you can figure as much.

Oh hey I just re-read your question and saw that you've only been dating for two months? Dump his ass. Right now.

Got a problem? Get at me here. Click this to tweet, and feel free to offer your own advice in the comments. But let's remember who the expert is here (Dr. Phil, I mean).

BLOGGING THE HUNGER GAMES, pt. 8: This One Goes To Eleven

Last time our girl Katniss made a classic job-interview mistake. Pro tip: if you're trying to get interviewers to pay attention to you, don't shoot an arrow at them! Shit, I'd work at The Atlantic right now if I hadn't committed that same faux-pas. So Katniss fired one off at the Gamemakers when they seemed more interested in their dinners than her archery performance; in the Gamemakers' defense, archery is fucking boring. But Anyway Katniss stormed out of the room without being dismissed, leaving on the high note like George Costanza. So now what?

Chapter 8

After a bold and defiant move like that, one hardly expects Katniss to burst into tears, but that's what she does. She takes the elevator to her room, ignores calls from Effie et al., and then sobs into her pillow for a while. Awwwwwww. She fears what will become of her, but tables that when she realizes her family could be threatened, too. Eventually she concludes that the Gamemakers will get revenge by giving her a low score. Scores? Huh? This is an emerging pattern in the book: Katniss goes rambling along until she mentions a new rule or concept. She's just like, “Oh by the way, mockingjays are...” So, scores: it turns out that since the Gamekeeper demos aren't televised, the only part the public sees is a ceremony in which the board members assign a score to each fighter based on how they did. The Hunger Games have a long-ass televised roll out, huh? This is day three! Who do they think they are, American Idol?

Katniss goes to dinner and confesses her act to Peeta, Haymitch and the gang. Effie is shocked, but Haymitch is charmingly unfazed.

“Well, that's that,” says Haymitch. Then he butters a roll.

He and Peeta brush off any potential consequences, much to Katniss's relief—the Hunger Games are about the most threatening thing you can do to a person already, and the risk of public outcry would be too great for them to punish the other members of the Everdeen family (OK that part doesn't make much sense, given that we've already seen that the government controls the media and everything else. Public outcry is rarely a problem in futuristic dystopias for that very reason. So Haymitch being so dismissive of the idea that The Man would go after Prim or Mama Everdeen kind of renders the whole book a little toothless, all of the sudden; if this government isn't evil enough to kill Prim how dare they even call themselves an evil government? But whatever, oh well).

Eventually even Effie is kind of delighting in the idea of the foppish, comsumptive Gamemakers being shaken up by Katniss's arrow, and just like that our girl is past the embarrassment stage and into the self-deprecating anecdote stage. I love that stage! She even seems to make up a part of the story where one of the Gamemakers falls into a bowl of punch. Good embellishment, Katniss!

After dinner they watch the scores being announced. Peeta gets an eight, that weird little chick Rue gets a seven (huh?) and Katniss gets...ELEVEN! Oh, did I mention that it's a scale of 1-12? By the way, it's a scale of 1-12. Haymitch concludes that they must have liked her temper. “They need some players with some heat,” he says. For some reason I thought of The Real World: Hawaii, and how they selected that chick (Ruthie!) who got so drunk she basically died in the first episode. That season was when I realized exactly how crass and exploitative Reality TV had become, or maybe had always been.

Of course the argument back against the above is that Reality TV stars are willing participants in the exploitative spectacle—that our cultural values have shifted so much that any fame, whether it's infamy or whatever you call the Kardashian brand, will do. There's an element of that at work here, with the Careers who sign up eagerly for the Games. I've been saying for a while now that our culture is getting so extreme and crazy (and the 2012 elections have barely started!) that the standard hyperbole of satire barely suffices to criticize us anymore (watch Mr. Show today and it's barely even a comedy so much as a documentary). But at the very least we can be happy that we don't have people signing up to LITERALLY kill one another on a TV show. Yet.

Do people watch Reality TV because it's dumb and easy to digest? Or is there more at work there? The humor on Jersey Shore plays to a denominator so low it approaches absolute zero (ask a Jersey Shore cast member what absolute zero is and they'd probably guess a brand of body spray) but I'm not totally willing to discount the blurred lines between fiction and reality as part of the draw. Every TV show is reality TV in a way, given how conscious we are of celebrity culture and all that--it's Chandler but it's also Matthew Perry--but maybe the interplay between real and fake on a sitcom isn't enough for people. Reality TV, even the most contrived stuff, is closer to the edge. We watch reality TV to be entertained but also to think about the way media manipulates our perception. Or is that too optimistic?

The next morning Katniss watches the sun rise over the city and thinks of Gale. Incidentally Gale is also probably thinking of Katniss while HE watches the sun rise over the morning wood. HEYOOO! She thinks back to the first time she met Gale, in the woods while hunting, and it's hella boring. Like, there's a part where they're sort of flirting after a tense confrontation, and it's fine, but I will spare you. The point is, Suzanne Collins is reminding us that there are multiple possible love interests up in this bitch:

I call him my friend, but in the last year it's seemed to casual a word for what Gale is to me.

“Fuckbuddy” is better, right? A little more formal, I'd say. So Katniss finishes masturbating and goes down to breakfast, where she's weirded out by everyone's silence at the table. Haymitch eventually explains that Peeta has asked to be coached privately, away from Katniss's eleven-earning eyes. OH SNAP.

Previously: Ask Nick Sullivan, Vol. 1

ASK NICK SULLIVAN: Letters To Esquire's Fashion Director, Answered by Zac Little

I am trying to settle the brown-suit, black shoe dilemma. People can obviously wear what they want, but what’s the fashionably acceptable pairing?

Howard Lindsay, West Hollywood CA

This year is all about MATCHING, Howard. I know, it’s a bit of an old-school notion, but these things go in cycles, just go with it. If you are wearing a black suit, pair it with black shoes and a black tie. Always. But don’t stop there. Wear a black shirt and black socks. Die your hair black. Black lipstick. Make sure you order all of your food that day “blackened,” as in Cajun Style. Try to seem like your very soul is black (in other words be an asshole to everyone). And you should probably be a black man too, just to me safe. If you are white, Howard (and I sense that you are), I would recommend wearing an all white suit with all white accessories (if your wallet is black or brown leather, switch it out for a money clip. Stylish!) and getting your teeth whitened.

We’re lucky that in today’s fashion world there is a color suit that corresponds to every race. It used to be that the Japanese were shit out of luck every fall!

Is there any kind of “man purse” that a man can carry to store all of his stuff?

Angelo DiMaggio, Oyster Bay NY

I too have long been advocating for a purse-like bag in which I can store my multivitamins, canned food, and the like. But alas Angelo, the fashion police are heteronormative fuckwads with pepper spray and billyclubs (so to speak). I long for the enlightened day when men will be able to carry small bags (I hope we will call them "man sacks") without being frowned upon. But until then: use your pockets, jackass.

Is it ever fashionable to wear a small, sleek knife clipped to the inside of your pants pocket when having a night out on the town? Thanks!

Matt Anderson, Atlanta GA

Not nearly as fashionable as a hand gun at church. But if you absolutely must bring a knife, just make sure you cut off your own head with it at the end of the night.

Like many 19-year-old college students, I spill on myself a lot. When liquor is involved, it gets bad. What are the best fabrics for going out?

Max Goodman, Oxford OH

First of all: TMI. Second of all, you can never go wrong in a track suit. Bitches will think you’re mobbed up, and they’ll swarm you like flies. Most of them will want OxyContin, but you’d be surprised what you can trade that for. That’s how I got my son! I had sex with a drug-addled hooker, I mean. I didn’t trade her for the kid. But I probably could have. You see what I’m saying?

I am 34 years old and in a position to buy a nice watch. My budget is more or less $10,000, and I’m trying to find one that stands out but is subtle, too. I’m thinking a Rolex, but which one?

Nicholas Schmids, Brookfield, CT

Fuck you.

BLOGGING THE HUNGER GAMES, pt. 7: The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

Science fiction writers who fear the political advance of religion write about a future in which religious lunatics have taken over (see The Handmaid's Tale). The Hunger Games seems to be warning us more about the effects of a violent culture of excess (it's somewhat conservative that way). Now, this has got to be the easiest way to write a novel about the future, right? Think about the things you hate the most and imagine they controlled you. Nobody writes about a horrible future in which everything they DO believe in comes to fruition, except the Left Behind guys. And fuck those dudes.

Chapter 7

I started to wonder for a while there if YA just didn't lend itself to close examination. When I was doing Twilight it felt like many of these posts were writing themselves; S. Meyer fell into the same traps so many times that creating a narrative about her narrative failures was almost too easy. And I felt like the same thing was starting to happen here. Katniss cycles from hardship-hardened tough woman to sweet and almost naïve girl back to suspicious and tough so many times in chapters 2-7 it was getting ridiculous. In this chapter, though, S. Collins turns her liability into an advantage, showing the cycle happen a few times in rapid succession during a kind of montage of Katniss and Peeta's training sessions. Our heroes trade witty banter and learn battle skills and all the while Kat lifts her guard up and pulls it back down like a wet t-shirt. It becomes endearing, in a weird way. That said, if this relationship were drawn out any more this would be a graphic novel. HEYOOO.

Katniss wakes up and has an uncomfortable shower because she's too lazy to bother trying to figure out the fucking nozzles and buttons. MONDAYS AM I RIGHT? She steps on the cat and tells it to fuck itself (or maybe that was me) and puts on a burgundy tunic (gentlemen start your engines) and heads down to breakfast. Eventually Haymitch and Peeta turn up and Katniss tells us that they're about to start three days of training, after which they will individually audition for the “gamemakers,” whoever the fuck they are (I'm guessing the descendants of Milton and Bradley). Haymitch asks what special skills they have and what follows is a weirdly flirty scene in which Katniss and Peeta sing each other's praises and then act annoyed at each other for doing so. Peeta talks about our narrator's accuracy with a bow, and how his father always pointed out that Katniss hit the squirrel in the eye every time out. Gross, Katniss. Also:

I never thought about Peeta eating the squirrels I shot. Somehow I always pictured the baker quietly going off and frying them up for himself.

What a creepy image! What's WRONG WITH YOU, Katniss? (“Oh, I just assumed your dad was having sex with those squirrel corpses.”) Anyway, Katniss tells Haymitch about how strong and muscle-y Peeta is and then they both look at each other like “Oh, have we maybe been obsessed with each other since childhood?”

[A]pparently, I have not been as oblivious to him as I imagined, either...I have kept track of the boy with the bread.

Peeta gets more and more exasperated as Katniss refuses to acknowledge how awesome she is, and he tells Haymitch, “She has no idea. The effect she can have.” It's hard to know if he means because people pity her or because she's sexy, but Katniss assumes the former so it's probably the latter. But it's ambiguous, and in a good way! This is the moment where I stopped being annoyed at Katniss's suspicions and the tensions between our heroes and started being interested. Until now it seemed like everything was a product of Katniss's insecurities, that Peeta was in love with her and she was just too self-deprecating to figure it out (has anyone ever read "The Frog Prince" as an allegory for self-esteem issues? If not I JUST DID BOOM). Now the picture seems more complex. Of course, it could still just be that Peeta luvs Katniss like krazy, that he has a notebook at home with “Peeta Everdeen” and “Katniss Mellark” written in a bunch of different milky pens all through the pages, but it doesn't feel like we're inexorably marching there at the moment, at least.

Haymitch tells them not to show their real talents in front of the other tributes, to use the training days to learn some new skills. Good advice. You gotta know when to hold them (That's what she said (about balls)). And he also mandates that they stay together at all times in public. That makes Katniss real mad:

It's such a joke! Peeta and I going along pretending to be friends! Talking up each other's strengths, insisting the other take credit for their abilities...

Hey girl, nobody made you do that last thing (that's what he said (about balls)). She gets on the elevator, and tells us it takes “less than a minute” to get to the training center in the basement. Well, of course! You're only going down 12 floors! Whoa, is this elevator actually really shitty by our standards but nice for Panem standards? What I'm asking is: at what level of technology should we picture Panem, really? Just because it's the future doesn't mean shit is actually advanced, you know? Think about it: it's implied that District 13 was bombed, but the only other weapons we've heard about (and continue to hear about in this chapter) are shit like swords and maces. Why don't Hunger Games contestants use guns? Why didn't Katniss and Peeta travel to the Capitol by plane? We're getting Soviet again with all this technological mix and match.

Katniss and Peeta start training in various stations (the “go around to different stations” thing is something we used to do in gym class when our teacher was feeling particularly lazy. “Okay, you guys go play basketball! You kids throw shot-put or something. Whatever!” It's slightly over-explained here and then somewhat comically mirrored later when Katniss explains that lunch is handled in the same fashion. So you can go straight from the hog-tying booth to the pulled-pork quesadilla cart!) and Peeta turns out to be pretty gifted in the field of camouflage. While Katniss watches him paint his firm, toned body (maybe while drooling a little) he confesses to her that he decorates the cakes in his father's shop window. Katniss recalls the beautiful cakes and tries to reconcile them with her idea of Peeta. Damn, the last time I saw someone in so many different lights I was in a lamp store.

Some other stuff happens: Katniss struggles to find conversation topics with Peeta and forbids him from talking to her in private—the resulting silence is even more fraught with sexual tension (or not, I'm not sure). They get tailed during their training sessions by Rue, the small female tribute who reminds Katniss of Prim. So the big question for me is: Is Katniss going to kill anyone when the games begin? Or is she going to survive some other way?

I was kind of under the impression we'd be in the training center enduring various interpersonal dramas between tributes for a while, reality show-style. So it's a little crazy when Katniss skips the three training days in a single paragraph. Suddenly it's audition day, and Katniss has to go last. After running around and shooting arrows at all kinds of shit like a boss, she looks up and sees that the Gamemakers (who are like the Hunger Games board of directors, I guess) are bored and not paying attention to her, instead looking at a roast pig they're about to have for dinner. So Katniss shoots an arrow directly at their table, taking the apple out of the pig's mouth. Hey, it's no William Tell, but at least it wasn't a William Burroughs.

Stray Notes & Questions

• There's a dark moment when Peeta is trying to make Katniss see how talented she is and he reveals that after the reaping, his mother basically told him she thought Katniss had a chance at winning the Hunger Games. Implying that he, her son, did not. MOMS, HUH? Yikes.
• We've seen a lot of Katniss's self-deprecating side, so it's surprising and interesting when she looks around the room at her fellow tributes and concludes that she has “a healthier body than most.” A few of them, though, are “Careers”—kids from the wealthy districts who are trained from birth to win the games. Even odds says the careers are all going to cancel each other out once the fighting starts.
• Speaking of once the fighting starts, what's going to happen when that happens? Imagine The Hunger Games to be a heist story, because right now that's sort of what it is. There's a big event coming up and we've met our team and we've learned the rules of the big event, and soon they're going to go in and do the thing. Heist genre conventions dictate that everything doesn't go according to plan once the heist starts: there's an obstacle no one anticipated, someone turns out to have shifting allegiances, or maybe some combination of both. So look for that, is what I'm saying.
• How are you liking this book so far?

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