But Peeta’s voice stops me. “We better take it slow on that stew. Remember the first night on the train? The rich food made me sick and I wasn’t even starving then.”

Starving people are so well known for their sensible, rational approach to having food again, amiright?

There’s just so many problems with this.  Part of it is that it takes away from the horror of starvation.  If they are starving, literally starving, but they react no differently than you or I would after missing a meal or two, then it cheapens the reality of actual starving people.  If the point of reading is to expand our minds, to learn about other people and other thought process and other ways of living and thereby become better and more empathetic people, then this book is doing the exact opposite.  It’s not exposing us to something different from our own lives, but rather inviting us to assume that being poor/starving/terrified/whatever is just the same as our own middle class existences. 

If you aren’t reading to expand your mind, then fine.  It’s still lazy writing.  It’s telling over showing.  We’re told that Katniss is hungry, but those words don’t have much weight when all they are is words.  She says “I’m so hungry” and then moves on with the plot as if “hungry” has no effect on her.  It has all the same relevance as saying “I’ve got brown hair.”  I’m left sitting here and going ”…yeah, and?“

“What was that you were saying just before the food arrived? Something about me… no competition… best thing that ever happened to you…”

I just can’t get over how out of place this is.  It’s a complete tonal shift from the rest of the novel.  Katniss keeps claiming it’s for the sake of the capitol audience, but it’s played straight so much that it’s really for the sake of the reading audience.  It doesn’t come off as something that’s a natural result of the setting.  It’s “murdermurdermurdermurdermurderhungryfishfridgingmurdertreesmurder*TIME FOR A ROMANCE BREAK, WHEEEE*murder.”  The text, and Katniss’s narration, gets bogged down with witty, fluffy banter and reveling in how kisses feel and other stuff that would be fine in a high school romance, but which is totally out of place in this novel.  If the book wants to have it in here and have it be purely for the capitol, then fine, but don’t completely grind the novel to a halt so you can have a warm, squishy couple of chapters all about two teenagers making out in a cave.  Let the characters remember where they are, let them have some emotional reaction to the situation instead of just to each other, and definitely don’t make the whole thing funny. 

I guess that’s what really bugs me the most.  The text just plays too much straight.  Katniss claims she’s playing to the capitol audience, but everything that’s supposed to be directed at them (the fluff, the banter, the tone, the inner narration, the love-triangle) is being directed at me instead.  At that means it really fails as a TV culture commentary, unless you decide to look at the book as being accidently ironic. 

“Ah, that’ll be nice,” says Peeta, tightening his arms around me. “You and me and Haymitch. Very cozy. Picnics, birthdays, long winter nights around the fire retelling old Hunger Games’ tales.”

Yeah, we’ll all sit around after this making jokes about the horrifically traumatizing event that drove our mentor to become a chronic alcoholic.  It’ll be fun!

There’s only so much I’m willing to grant as being “playing to the audience.”  Even if they’re willing/trying to intentionally play along, it’s not like they’ve got a checklist of things they have to say.  Some of this shit could just be avoided or downplayed, rather than having our two “heroes” go out of their way to insult former child victims and deliver a cheap laugh to their masters.

I know the audience will enjoy our having fun at Haymitch’s expense. He has been around so long, he’s practically an old friend to some of them.

Uh, okay, but what about Haymitch?  You know, the man who directly controls when and what you receive?  All well and good to play to the audience, but the vast majority of them aren’t doing jack shit for you.  The man you are currently mocking on national television, however, is doing his damndest to stay sober and is working around the clock to try and help you get home.

I wonder how he’s holding up, with the drinking, the attention, and the stress of trying to keep us alive.

Nice of you to finally think of that.  Well, sort of, since it’s a bit late and you never bother to think that maybe you were an ass for making fun of him.

he seems able to communicate with me by the timing of his gifts. […] and how I know now that I have to play up the romance.

Say, it’s Peeta supposed to be the one who’s good with people, while Katniss is the one who can’t even tell when other people like her?  So why is Peeta so clueless when food keeps arriving right as they’re at their most romantic?  I mean, he started this whole thing as a way to get sponsorship for Katniss, shouldn’t he also know that this is an act?  Even if he believes she really has feelings for him right now, shouldn’t he know still be keeping in mind that they’re in a murderdeath game arena and on camera?

I guess this book figures consistent characterization can be forfeit in favor of convenient drama.

Haymitch is sturdily built, but no physical wonder like Cato or Thresh. He’s not particularly handsome. Not in the way that causes sponsors to rain gifts on you. And he’s so surly, it’s hard to imagine anyone teaming up with him.

Uh, you guys are aware that that’s who he is now, right?  And that his physique and his surliness are the result of 25 years of alcoholism and depression and PTSD?  That he could very well have been completely different before the games than he is now after them?  Do you just not have a concept of possibility that great trauma could have major, personality and life-altering effects on a person?

Well, I guess considering what we see in Catching Fire, they probably don’t.  After all, they’re both basically the same after the games, just richer.

There’s only one way Haymitch could have won, and Peeta says it just as I’m reaching this conclusion myself.

“He outsmarted the others,” says Peeta.

Or he could have gotten lucky.  Peeta’s still alive, and he’s not exactly physically impressive or the brightest crayon in the box.  Maybe Haymich just sat in a mud puddle for four days while the rest of the kids died by blundering into wasp nests. 

Maybe, in the beginning, he tried to help the tributes. But then it got unbearable. It must be hell to mentor two kids and then watch them die. Year after year after year.

Are you ever going to feel bad for making fun of him?

I realize that if I get out of here, that will become my job. To mentor the girl from District 12. The idea is so repellent, I thrust it from my mind.

Yeah.  Katniss has an amazing talent for never thinking about things that won’t actually be an issue.  It’s like she just knows what’s important and what isn’t!

I give a noncommittal shrug and cup my elbows in my hands, hugging them close to my body. I have to bury the real pain because who’s going to bet on a tribute who keeps sniveling over the deaths of her opponents.

Uh, the people who have already bet on you thus far?  Come on, there’s four kids left, it’s not like you’ve got a lot of competition.  Plus, as the game gets closer to the end, the odds against any one kid winning go down.  Which means that to make a sizable return, you have to bet early in the game, because betting at the end would barely make you any money back.  The people with enough money to actually send you gifts are people who have already placed bets by now, so why the fuck are you still going on about this?

Besides that, who cares?  She’s acting as if betting is done on who they like best, not on who is the best killer.  If she cries over Thresh, so what, he’s dead.  Crying over Cato, who is alive, would be more of a thing, because then someone might think she’d hesitate in a one-on-one with him.  For that matter, all the posturing she’s done for the cameras so far hasn’t been about winning the games.  Fuck, this whole romance plot tumor isn’t even about winning the games.  So they’re in love, how does that help?  If the sponsorship is people trying to help who they bet on, and they bet on people they think will win, then how does it help at all?

It doesn’t.  The only way this could possibly make sense is if you take betting out of the picture entirely.  Just make it people giving money to who they like the best, not who they think will kill the most kids.  Otherwise, this is the kind of betting people make on Survivor, or the Bachelor, where people are kicked off the show because they don’t play well with the audiences and thus people pick winners and losers simply based on likability, not skills. 

The childmurderdeath games should not be this close to a cross between high school and Big Brother.

But no one will understand my sorrow at Thresh’s murder. The word pulls me up short. Murder! Thankfully, I didn’t say it aloud.

…uh, what did you think was going on before now?

“It also means Cato will be back hunting us.”

“And he’s got supplies again,” says Peeta.

…what, was Thresh made out of tent parts and hunting gear?

“Oh, she’s fine,” I say peevishly. I’m still angry she thought of hiding in the Cornucopia and I didn’t.

You know, if you’d just take a fraction of the hate you have for Nell and direct it at the gamemakers, I’d probably like you more.

“We make a goat cheese and apple tart at the bakery,” he says.

“Bet that’s expensive,” I say.

“Too expensive for my family to eat.

Why?  Apparently people pick apples from the woods and keep goats at home.  You’ve already got dough.  The most expensive thing in a tart is the sugar, but apparently even Little Miss Poverty over there has enough honey to dump it in her drinks.  In case you weren’t aware, honey is a perfectly good sugar substitute.  And apples are sweet enough to be in a tart alone.  I mean, us middle class readers would probably demand sugar, but if you grew up on sugarless apple pastries, they’d taste plenty sweet.

But there’s something kind of depressing about living your life on stale bread, the hard, dry loaves that no one else wanted.

Uh, you almost starved to death, Katniss.  Stale bread should be what you have wet dreams about.

There’s just a total lack of a starving person’s perspective in this book.  Sure, Peeta’s food sounds depressing…to us.  There’s no reason it should sound depressing to someone who has to scrimp and save for every mouthful.  Then again, I guess I have been claiming this whole time that Katniss hasn’t ever really been starving.

For the first time, I allow myself to truly think about the possibility that I might make it home. To fame. To wealth. To my own house in the Victor’s Village. My mother and Prim would live there with me.

God damnit, brat, really?  You thinking about surviving and your first two thoughts are fame and wealth?  Your family on factors in when you consider they’ll have to live with you?  Can’t you have one single, solitary, normal thought, like “Hey, maybe I won’t fucking die”?

I know I’ll never marry, never risk bringing a child into the world.

So, this is the only reason, ever, that she gives for not getting married.

Katniss, there’s this handy thing called a contraceptive.  If you’re thinking about being rich, you should be able to afford them, even if you couldn’t before.  There’s also abortifacients.  There are plants you can eat that will induce abortion.  That’s usually listed as a risk and reason not to eat them, but there’s no reason you can’t do it on purpose.  There’s other plants you can eat that have the side effect of “sterility.”  There’s also not having vaginal sex.  Really, if you get married, your husband does not have a permanent claim on your vagina.  You can have other kinds of sex.  Marriage does not have to lead to babies.  And the way it’s so frankly stated here, the way she leaps from A to B without so much as a pit stop between, leaves no room in the narrative for any other options.  Which is more than a little creepy.

“Hey, Effie, watch this!” says Peeta. He tosses his fork over his shoulder and literally licks his plate clean with his tongue making loud, satisfied sounds. Then he blows a kiss out to her in general and calls, “We miss you, Effie!”

Just…hey, remember all those dead kids?  Yeah, pretty easy to forget, aren’t they.

You’re both horrible, horrible protagonists.

Once we’re packed up and standing outside our cave, our mood shifts to serious.

Because in the middle of the childmurderdeath games, it’s just so easy to relax.

Like almost everything else, I wouldn’t mind this nearly so much if it just wasn’t presented as a matter of fact.  She could at least spare a moment of thought, wondering if there’s something wrong with her for enjoying any part of this or at least being surprised that it’s possible.

It’s as though for the last few days, sheltered by the rocks and the rain and Cato’s preoccupation with Thresh, we were given a respite, a holiday of sorts. Now, although the day is sunny and warm, we both sense we’re really back in the Games.

Even the book admits that it totally took a timeout for romance.

So what I’d really like is to try and conceal him somewhere safe, then go hunt, and come back and collect him. But I have a feeling his ego isn’t going to go for that suggestion.

Hey, when’s the last time in a book you ever heard a male wonder if a female’s ego could handle being protected?

It’s really astounding here.  They have no more food and need to hunt, and Peeta can’t defend himself or keep quiet.  But Katniss is still going to worry about his fucking ego instead of telling to just wait somewhere safe.  Because it’s alright to tell a woman to do that, but a man might have his feelings hurt and we just can’t have that.  Peeta’s ego is more important than Katniss’s survival.

Because this book is feminist and don’t you forget it.

Yeah, and that turned out great. You ended up dying in a mud bank. That’s what I want to say, but I can’t.

Why can’t you?  Katniss, you’re trying to keep two people alive.  Forget about sparing his feelings.  This is the murderdeath games, not finishing school.

“I don’t know what ate the cheese,” Peeta says slowly and distinctly, as if trying not to lose his temper, “but it wasn’t me. I’ve been down by the stream collecting berries. Would you care for some?”

I hate this scene.  Just look at it.  Katniss comes in yelling at him because she was scared for his life, and he treats her like she’s just a silly little female who’s losing her head over nothing.  He’s all patronizing and placating and trying to calm her down, without once realizing that she’s got a fucking valid point, you idiot.  I mean, come on, she’s the experienced hunter in this pairing, and you’re a baker.  Don’t treat her like a child throwing a hissy fit.

But the icing on the cake is this line here.  Without this line, the rest would just be uncomfortable, not rant-worthy.  But this…someone has clearly eaten the cheese.  There’s a bite out of it.  Which means someone is near enough to get at their food.  They’re in the murderdeath games.  And still Peeta acts like Katniss is just having a tantrum and he’s putting forth such a great effort to be the bigger person and take the high road by not yelling at her.  Come on, Peeta, this isn’t a “girl problem” that’s oh-so-confusing.  How about a moment of shock that there’s someone else in the woods with you?

They’re nightlock. You’ll be dead before they reach your stomach.”

Oh, really?  Tell me how an ingested poison can kill you before you actually ingest it.

Nightshade and hemlock are actually relatively mild.  It really depends on the strain you get of each.  However, even with the deadliest ones, you need more than a berry and it takes more time than a few seconds.  So I’ve no idea how a cross between the two became insta-kill berries, unless the botanist added in cyanide and just deiced cylock wasn’t a cool enough name.