Jennifer Lawrence will reprise her role at Katniss in “Catching Fire,” next up in “The Hunger Games” trilogy. Credit: Reuters
I’ve read “The Hunger Games” so many times that I’ve even pretty much memorized the critical blurbs on the cover. The most prominent among them is from Suzanne Collins’ fellow thriller novelist, Stephen King: “A violent, jarring speed trap of a novel.”
That comes from a glowing review he wrote for Entertainment Weekly of the first book in the trilogy when it came out. Apparently, King doesn’t remember the praise he heaped on it as well as I do: He now claims it left him cold.
Calling “Twilight” and books like it “tweenager porn,” King told the Guardian, “I read ‘Twilight’ and didn’t feel any urge to go on with her. I read ‘The Hunger Games’ and didn’t feel an urge to go on. It’s not unlike ‘The Running Man,’ which is about a game where people are actually killed and people are watching: a satire on reality TV.”
The “Running Man” thing is fair. What’s maybe less fair: claiming not to like a book that has praise from you actually on its cover. Make up your mind, King.
