Comparing the Hunger Games to Twilight is so unfair to the Hunger Games. It's on an entirely different plane. The only thing they have in common is the fairly simple, easy-to-read writing style. I will admit, though, that it's smart to market towards the Twilight demographic (and maybe being exposed to something with actual literary merit will break the haze that has enveloped the minds of Twilight followers).
The Hunger Games has a plot that readers can invest in, a villain they can hate, a moral dilemma they can ponder, and real characters they can relate to. You pretty much hit the nail on the head with all those details. Sometimes I grate at Katniss' [over]reactions to things, but at least she seems real and that has kept me reading. Peeta shows that the Nice Guy archetype can be used without portraying the character as an idiot/a hopeless-fool-in-love (because he's actually quite clever and savvy).
Good review.
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I really enjoyed it
Well, title says it all. So I'd like to say why I enjoyed it.
This series made a good choice at being marketed at teens. When people talk about teenage-oriented books nowadays, they tend to think of Twilight, which leads to comparisons with books like this. People say the Hunger Games is similar because it has a Love Triangle and a female protagonist. The problem with this is that the few elements it has in common are done right in the Hunger Games.
This isn't going to be a rant about Twilight comparisons, but I'd just like to say that Katniss is a great heroine. The first person exposition does a good job at talking about her past, her relationships with other characters, and her hostile opinions on the government. And she has understandable problems such as being offended at being used as a pawn to overthrow the Capitol.
I thought Peeta and Gale were great. Gale is an older childhood friend who has a dark side of using violence to succeed in the more important goal, but is still a good person. Peeta is the Nice Guy who helped Katniss without needing to be thanked, and has a way with words to make up for lackluster fighting abilities. At different points of the story, I wanted a different one of them to win while still liking the other.
The Capitol is friggin' AWESOME. Just everything about them is so evil: how they live glamorous lives with insane fashions in a vibrant, technologically advanced city while their districts live working for them in the poor towns, and how they actually make out the Hunger Games to be a sporting competition. I just thought that was amazing, and for some reason I had a lot of fun picturing the ways their city was being destroyed in the third book.
My personal favorite part of this book, as well as why it was recommended to me, is the suspense. Even in the parts of the second book where we don't know much about the rebellion, I'm always wondering what will happen next. The chapters often end in vaguely worded cliffhangers, which stops you from putting them down at the end of the chapter.
The book was wise to take the teen audience seriously. Being a part of them, the concepts of violence and the Black And Gray Morality weren't foreign to me, and I was glad to have read a book involving it targeted at my age group. Overall, I recommend this book to anyone who likes these genres. It's a good read.