I first read The Hunger Games about two years ago, if I remember correctly, but didn't own the other two books in the trilogy, so I kind of forgot about it for a while. I enjoyed the plot, thought it was pretty good, and that's all I can remember well enough about the first time around to say.
A couple months back, I read Battle Royale, and I noticed that a lot of the reviews mentioned The Hunger Games having ripped off of it, so I decided that as soon as I acquired the last 2 books I'd give this series a reread, and, well, the time has come.
The similarities are undeniable. I won't go pointing every single one out, but I definitely recommend reading [b:Battle Royale|57891|Battle Royale|Koushun Takami|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331235272s/57891.jpg|2786327] if you're curious. The vast similarities are one thing that kind of lowered my opinion of this book.
I also realized that my taste in writing style has definitely changed. For the first half of this book, I just could not get over how... adolescent the writings seemed. Even for young adult books. I think it was writing like this that drove me away from the YA genre in the first place. I'm not saying that ALL YA is inherently bad, but a lot that I've read feels more like a draft than an actual finished, published book.
It gets a bit better in the latter parts, or maybe I just got used to it. There were a lot of choppy and/or run on sentences that the editing missed, though, and those got really distracting around half-way through the book.
Then there's the love triangle, which is confusing, and not in a good way. It's hard to tell which direction the author is going for, as they seem to flip from one way to another. I'm seriously hoping this settles down later in the series.
I guess my interests have just changed a lot; I've read tons of other books since I last read this, and it just pales in comparison. I still enjoy the plot, minus the love triangle, enough to read the rest of the series. If the writing had been better edited and certain parts a bit more thought out, I probably would have given this at least 3.5 stars. But, right now, this one just didn't work for me, and I mean no disrespect to anybody; this review is just based on my own personal tastes that I've acquired over the 10+ years that I've been an avid reader. I apologize if there are any portions of this review that seem rude or whatnot, this is just a free flow of my honest thoughts, and I'm absolutely terrible when it comes to sugar coating things.