Overdue Podcast discussion

*whistles Mockingjay tune*

Possible conversation starter: anyone read these books as a teenager? We were almost a decade too old for that experience.

I read them when I was 19-20 but I wish I had been a bit younger. I liked the setting and was pretty thrilled overall but I didn't really connect with any of the characters the way I might have had if I was just a tiny bit younger. Plus I was always more of a Battle Royale kinda guy.

I read THG series in my early 20s, but had watched Battle Royale as a teenager after someone explained the premise to me at a church retreat. By the time I got to THG in 2012, I found them more tame in action but fulfilling in a way that articulated my feelings as an emerging adult* in the post-Iraq invasion US.

*I had read that the 18-24 demo was being called Emerging Adulthood as many young adults didn't quite know how to make the leap into regular adulthood. I find this is still possible after 24.

WOW i read these when i was around 12 or 13 and it was the biggest thing in our class. i distinctly remember people arguing about being team peeta or team gale (twilight was never as big for us) and me trying to get people to join the Finnick Cause (yes catching fire is my favourite of the three and yes i fell asleep reading mockingjay)

I read the three books back-to-back ten years after the first was written, and having left behind my teenage years thirty years previously.
When I were a lass, we read Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies for our dystopia kicks. They were both obligatory reading at one point or another, but I loved them both regardless. They also thoroughly horrified me.

I really enjoyed THG too, and I feel the series incorporates elements which many dystopian novels lack: hope, solidarity and fearlessness in the face of oppression. I envy teenagers who get to read this at the “right” time!