First Long Blog

I recently finished reading the Hunger Games Catching Fire. I will be writing on the topic for if it is a great American novel or not. For me this is a hard answer. The hunger games series has been so loved and talked about by many people when it first came out. It was also turned into a movie series as well so that just shows how much people liked it. In class we talked about how for a book to be a great American novel it has to have a couple qualities, first of course it has to be a novel and yes the Hunger Games is a novel. Second, it has to relate to America and the generation it takes time in. Obviously this book is fictional so it is kind of hard for it to relate to real world problems. It also has to have a theme or message throughout the book. For me I think no and yes to if Hunger Games could be a great American novel. I think yes for a few reasons. The first being this book series is so well known by my entire generation and sales did really well in America. I remember when these books first came out in 2008 and 2010 they were all over everything there was a lot of buzz around these books. If you ask people in my generation there’s a very good chance people have either read the books or seen the movies. Lastly why I think it might be a great American novel is because of the theme in the book. The theme throughout all of the books is to stand up for what you believe in and if you are being oppressed don’t be afraid to rise up for equality. In the first book Katniss and Peeta threaten to eat these poisonous berries at the end of the games so that there wouldn’t be a single winner that year.  Katniss has always stood up for what she believed in and her mockingjay symbol became what all the districts used as a mascot for this rebellion. I think the book is also not a great American Novel for a couple reasons too. The first is that Catching Fire is fiction. Not even realistic fiction so this book isn’t realistic, but has some realistic messages displayed throughout. It also doesn’t really connect to what’s going on in the real world in America. It has no real world correlation other than maybe the fact of oppression and having to fight for equality, but then this would be a move similar to the civil rights movement. So without a connection to my generation or the real world it would be very hard for me to call it a great American novel.  I definitely think it’s a great novel series, but can’t be labelled as a great American novel