Suzanne Collins and The Hunger Games

In honor of Women's History Month, I thought I would talk about one of my favorite female authors, Suzanne Collins. Her trilogy The Hunger Games is my favorite book series ever. I also adore the movies. I won't give a full review of the books here, but I just wanted to talk about how much I love what Collins has accomplished as a writer. Collins started off as a television writer for Nickelodeon in the 1990's, working on shows like Clarissa Explains it All and Little Bear. All shows that I used to watch when I was a young kid. She went on to write children's books (and continues to do so), before transitioning into young adult/adult fiction. In 2008 she hit big with The Hunger Games, and just four years later it was turned into a successful film series starring Jennifer Lawrence as the book's heroine, Katniss Everdeen. While I do love the movies, the books do a better job of building the world of Panem in which Katniss lives in, based on a futuristic North America. Collins does a great job bringing the world of Panem alive, and I wish she would write more stories set in that universe. Katniss is one of my favorite heroines in fiction and made me want to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow (I still haven't). The Hunger Games movie came out the same year as The Avengers movie which also featured an archer, and the popular CW show Arrow premiered around that same time as well. Leading to an interest in heroes and heroines that shoot bows. For instance, a certain redhead on the CW show Riverdale was revealed to be an excellent shot with a bow. 

One of the things that I love about Katniss' story is that while she does have two love interests, in the books it's not really a matter of her choosing between them (it's played up more in the movies). Katniss' whole journey and motivation is her sister Prim. Everything she does is to try an save her sister. The reason that starts the whole series is her volunteering in her sisters place, to save Prim. It's an aspect that I really admire in the character. While the books are amazing, I also think that the movies are some of the best book to movie adaptations. 

Collins worked on the screenplay, and I love most of the changes that were made to the films, with a few exceptions. I'm sure I will review the three books on the blog someday so I won't get into the details here. But I absolutely love the third movie Mockingjay Part 1 and the changes there, I feel are for the better. Plus Collins wrote the lyrics to the hauntingly beautiful song sung by Jennifer Lawrence, "The Hanging Tree". Even though Collins has gone on to write another series called The Underland Chronicles, I will always be grateful for her work in The Hunger Games books.