I recently joined a book club. I'm inspired to meet new people, since I've moved, and also the club happened to be reading The Hunger Games. I knew I should read this wildly popular book, but I'd been avoiding it. Something about it's popularity turned me off.
Then I read it. Quickly. And I had to admit, it was popular for good reason. This Suzanne Collins really knows how to draw you in, keep your attention, and create strong female characters - a nice added bonus, I think.
The ending, however, turned me off a little. Since I was too shy to speak up at my book club meeting (maybe next time I'll be more brave!), I figured I'd sound off here.
When I read the book, I knew there was a sequel. But still. Leaving the reader hanging like that at the end felt... manipulative. My feeling is each book in a sequel should still stand alone. You should feel satisfied as a reader. Questions need not remain. Readers should be motivated to move on to the sequel for other reasons. The strength of the writing. A love of the characters. A sense that the author is so good, you just want to read more from him or her.
After reading both the first and second book in this series, I feel almost as if the author, or an editor, simply chopped a longer work into thirds, so readers would have no choice but to keep reading the sequels.
I will, of course, read the third book. I have to know what happens.
