I finally read Hunger Games last night. Started around 9:30, finished around 12:30.

I'd been putting off reading it as my DH read it like a year ago or longer, and didn't like it. Quoth he, "Way too much time describing what people are wearing."

So I wrote him last night to tell him I'd read it and liked it, and he responded, "That's funny, as I just stayed up way too late reading Catching Fire. "

Now we're fighting about whether or not Hunger Games is cut from the same cloth as Twilight.

Now we're fighting about whether or not Hunger Games is cut from the same cloth as Twilight.

Really?

Now we're fighting about whether or not Hunger Games is cut from the same cloth as Twilight

Who's arguing the "pro" position? Because I'm not seeing it, except in a very general sense that it's an SF/F story with a young female protagonist, that has captured the imagination and attention of a lot of people. Oh, and written in the first person.

Collins' prose isn't fantastic, but it's competent enough, and she's killer at narrative momentum, none of which I've heard about Twilight. Katniss operates out of desperation, and not out of any romantic longing--while I find the series a bit too heteronormative, one can't say that Katniss wastes a lot of time pondering her romantic choices. She's got shit to do.

So, keeping in mind that neither the DH nor I have read any of the Twilight books, and are therefore talking out of our asses, allow me to paste his position from email:

It gets positively creepy how she starts writing about all the sleeping together and the warm-tummy feelings (but no sex, of course) and I am sure that you have figured out that Peeta is Edward and the ... other one is.... uhm, the wolfy one.

I guess I just find it disturbing that YA is now all about these erotically charged, but sexless, relationships where the main character's cluelessness is what preserves the purity of the relationship. I find this neither realistic, interesting, or healthy. I would just as soon that my YA be devoid of any references to eroticism than have it flirt with sex but suggest that ignorance is the best defense against anything untoward.

ETA: my response was to tell him to read Cold Kiss before painting all YA with the Twilight brush.

I think you really need to finish the trilogy, and have a little more knowledge of Twilight, before making the comparison. Peeta, to my mind, is in no way like Edward, and Katniss wouldn't allow him to be anyway.

The sex thing is a different issue. Some YA includes sex, but it's mostly contemporary, realistic YA that deals with it seriously. In Collins's book, I had no problem with the lack of it, simply because it rang true to me that it was something completely new for Katniss -- when you're trying to keep your family alive and fed, hooking up isn't likely to be the first thing on your mind.

Also, these books are written for teens, remember, not all of whom are exploring sex as early as you might think. There's also the issue of anything gratuitous being censured or challenged, so a lot of authors and publishers prefer to stay away from it unless it's important to the story. Here, it's not, in my opinion.

I meant to say, too, that the books are about so much more than that for me, and Katniss is such a rich, conflicted character who has to make so many hard choices, I just can't see any comparison to Bella, aside from the fact that they're both girls.

And thank you for the kind words about Cold Kiss. I was prepared to fight for the one scene that explores sex -- albeit fairly vaguely -- if my editor balked, and I'm grateful that she didn't.

I guess I just find it disturbing that YA is now all about these erotically charged, but sexless, relationships where the main character's cluelessness is what preserves the purity of the relationship

Purity of the relationship? There isn't even a relationship. There's a forced mockery of love, with one half of the interaction being a kid with PTSD and what looks like at least situational asexuality going on.

Some people are going to want to fuck like rabbits when they have to fight to the death and kill other teenagers.

I'm not judging anyone, however, who isn't like me.

What that has to do with even the popular impression of Twilight is beyond me.

And thus my frustration with this particular literary fight.

Although, mostly what I said was "My main point of comparison is that I've never wanted to read Twilight, and I've been wanting to read Hunger Games for a long time."

Although, mostly what I said was "My main point of comparison is that I've never wanted to read Twilight, and I've been wanting to read Hunger Games for a long time."

Heh, yeah.

I think your DH is over-reading the relationship between Katniss & Peeta, if he really sees Peeta as Edmund. Certainly Katniss absolutely cannot be bothered about the whole romance element, and when she is forced to, it's at least half strategic rather than felt.

Which, frankly, I rather appreciate, since I suspect that would have been my response in the same situation. "Seriously, at a time like this, you want to talk about romance?"

I've read the first Twilight and all three Hunger Games:

Bella: insecure, moons after Edward from word "go," doesn't have much of an active role in anything in her life. Romance and Edward over everything.

Katniss: relentlessly protagonist, physically very capable, cold-hearted (seeming) pragmatist. Family and survival over everything, romance is a luxury.

Edward: creepy, stalkery, makes decisions for Bella's "own good" without her say.

Peeta: tries to help and support Katniss without taking away her own agency (arguably, she takes away his at various points).

(I think all of that is sufficient generic enough not to require white-fonting.)

Yeah, tell hubby that all your invisible friends say he's wrong like a wrong thing. They're both YA hetero love triangles, but that's about it for similarities.

I don't know from Twilight. So, I'll just put that out there.

But when R invokes the 'warm tummy feelings' with Peeta, and then the other relationship with "well, the wolfy one" (and I know you know this is a paraphrase of your paraphrase), it sounds like he's reacting to the relationship triangle - the difficult choice of one girl between two different boys.

If that's the case, I'll admit that it is a pattern that I'd love to see less of in YA. Some books do it really well (buffista authors, esp), but some it feels like a plug-in structure, and I'm sure things must be more complicated.

Or, as ita ! said.

Also, this could just be my peeve.