The Girl Who Was on Fire

This is an examination of the Hunger Games from an academic, but understandable, viewpoint.

It examines why the series is so popular and ties that in to today's reality television shows like Jerry Springer, and how these types of shows make violence seem to be okay. If people on television can do it then why not regular people?

Other topics it covers include:'

Love as a political act. (Katniss and Peeta)

The major regimentation of District 13. (You're told when to work, what to do, when to eat, where you can't go, etc.)

Being real vs. being centered on how your image is seen by others.

How the media can influence and control what we see and how we think about things.

Shows how the reality shows can make things more difficult for the contestants, just like was done on the various hunger games.

Reporting vs. propaganda.

Can deadly things like the mutts or tracker jackers ever exist? (Without a doubt. A few years ago I read about a plan to cross chicken DNA with dinosaur DNA to produce a chicken with teeth. Yep. A chicken with teeth. Why the heck go that?)

Game theory.

Clothes and public image.

Mental damage from being in the games such as developing PTSD.

Did the third book suck? (In my opinion, absolutely not.)

The downfall of decadant societies. (Rome and France as examples.)

Was faking pregnancy justified?

How Katniss reacts, how she doesn't set out to be a leader at all and that she's not like Buffy.

How she's a symbol for others.

Surveillance in the districts (which actually is very similar to that found in the television series The Prisoner. There's other similarities between the two, also.)

Other things that make our present controlled society similar to that which went on in the various districts.

It's also important when a book that is academic in nature is readable and makes sense and this is one of those rare books. Extremely well done and very thought-provoking.