The Hunger Games

©Lionsgate The Hunger Games

So maybe I’m a little bit behind the hype here but I’ve only just watched The Hunger Games last night after failing to see it at the cinema. After all of the fuss over the film, I finally decided to read the books even though I had never heard of them before the release of the movie. I was so surprised that I wrote an article for my university newspaper which went something like this…

If you haven’t heard of The Hunger Games yet, where have you been? Before its film success, the novel had maintained a spot on USA Today’s bestselling books list for 135 weeks. And with such a huge fanbase, The Hunger Games trilogy is undoubtedly a phenomenon as big as Harry Potter and Twilight.

Unfortunately, because of its target audience and its success, it is difficult to avoid comparing Collins’ novel to Harry Potter and Twilight, but if you’re a fan of either you will love this book and the film. Within a couple of chapters, I was completely gripped.

To give a brief summary (without spoilers), The Hunger Games is based in the country of Panem, controlled by the Capitol after a failed rebellion. The Capitol hosts the televised Hunger Games every year to warn the country against another uprising. There is a draw from which one girl and one boy between the ages of 12 and 18 are picked from each of the 12 remaining districts to fight to the death. The last one to remain in the game, alive, is the victor. In the 74^th annual Games, Katniss Everdeen prepares to fight for District 12.

Forget Bella; Katniss embodies all the strength, wittiness and intelligence of the ultimate heroine. She completely defies all stereotypes and you cannot help but fall for her tough, independent exterior which hides her almost soft and sometimes naïve nature.

I love Twilight, honestly I do, but I first read those books when I was 14 and 15 years old. Upon returning to read them recently, it spoiled the magic for me as I realised how controversial and yet marginal the content and characters really are. But The Hunger Games can be read as a wonderful, and truly brilliant, critique of society and the Capitalist system.

From the alienated, anonymous twelve districts working to supply the Capitol, to the celebrated sole victor of the Games as a way to appease the population, Collins has created a novel that is not just entertaining but is extremely thought provoking.

Whilst I’ll avoid as many spoilers as possible, something else that struck me whilst reading this book was the sincerity of Peeta. I have to admit, this is one of the most moving things about this novel. As the reader is dragged through turmoil and struggle, he is what grounds this story with his simple determination to remain true to himself, another allusion to the flaws of Capitalism with its destruction of individualism.

Indeed, this dystopian novel has been praised as “outstanding” by The Times. Yet it is not only an exhilarating ride on the constantly wavering edge between life and death but also calls into question the very nature of being human.

And a few months on, these comments still stand. Even more so after watching the film, which I thought was a fantastic adaptation.

Annoyingly, halfway through, my brother (being the computer geek that he is) said “God, those graphics are awful” when Katniss and Peeta were set on fire. And yeah, do you know what, they weren’t great but I think the whole point was that they weren’t meant to be brilliant because the entire concept of the Games is that they’re fake and completely fabricated, only serving to highlight the illusion of their reality.

He and my dad also kept predicting what would happen by the end and if I hadn’t have read the books I would have said exactly the same thing. But I have, and this is another reason why Collins has done an incredible job; everything that you would expect from a novel of this young adult genre is completely usurped. Read it and you’ll know what I mean because this is one gutsy writer who has the right to point and laugh at those who think she’s just written another, predictable story.

The film also didn’t openly try and appeal to younger audiences so didn’t fail to deliver the seriousness and pure grittiness of the novel. I felt that the way the desperation to survive and kill was kept as raw and true as it was (and as would be in reality) in the book.

And just as a sidenote: Jennifer Lawrence is a perfect casting choice. What an amazing and up-and-coming actress (with an equally fabulous figure might I add).

So I challenge you to read The Hunger Games and not find yourself drawn into the suspense, the terror and the passion which Collins so excellently weaves between its pages. I promise that you will be hungry for more…

It's Mystic Falls... Nothing bad ever happens here.

Before I start… This post contains MAJOR SPOILERS. So, whilst I’m sure if you’re a Vampire Diaries fan you will have seen the Season 3 finale, if you haven’t DO NOT READ BEYOND THIS POINT!


I’m mainly doing this review for my own sake because number one, I am already struggling without any TVD in my life (and I’ve already rewatched all of the seasons) and number two, I need to understand and fully appreciate this episode because it was simply amazing.

So here’s a brief overview of the episode:

Favourite moment: Everything from the moment Rebekah causes Matt and Elena’s accident onwards.

Most moving moment: the entire scene of the paralleling car accidents, so beautifully done.

Most confusing moment: the whole deal Elijah makes with Elena… It seemed very kind of him to do that considering they’d stopped the heart of his brother.

Most exciting moment: Elena wakes up at the very end: Best. Cliffhanger. Ever.

Favourite performance: I love evil Alaric but this has to go to Nina’s spectacular underwater performances, capturing Elena’s turmoil as she first loses her parents and then herself.

Best relationship between characters: Tyler and Caroline as a couple have to win this one. Their goodbye and Candice’s distressing yet convincing performance was flawless. But wait... Should I be saying Klaus and Caroline instead? Either guy with Caroline would probably win this for that moment but I'm secretly supporting a Caroline and Klaus get-together!

The way The Departed started was good enough to draw viewers right in from the moment ‘So What’ by Pink starts playing and Elena actually looks happy. Not a ‘let’s-put-on-a-brave-face-today’ happy nor ‘let’s-appreciate-today-because-tomorrow-could-be-crap’ happy- nope, this is genuine chirpiness. It always amazes me how Dobrev can adapt to these different emotions so well, playing a broken girl one minute and a picture of perfection the next. And then, of course, in true TVD style we are torn from the happy and dumped right into reality. It is extremely difficult to detach oneself from a character who you have followed right from the beginning of their emotional journey. That loneliness she experiences in the hospital room reflects Elena’s life now: Tyler, Caroline, Bonnie, Stefan, Damon, Alaric and even Jeremy are so far removed from being normal that Elena, whilst being the doppelganger, seems relatively ordinary compared with her supernatural friends (excluding Matt, of course). It makes her seem out of place in the life she is leading and this scene emphasises how Elena’s life needs to move on, something the writers decided to fulfil with the ending.

The decision to bring Elijah back briefly was great but I find his constant popping up to be a little unbelievable. How can an original just keep coming and going like that and be forgotten by the gang until they turn up again? Although Elijah, and Daniel Gilles, has proved to be extremely popular amongst fans, his appearances are pretty random and pretty convenient. I wouldn’t have thought he’d have been so forgiving just to get Klaus’ body back considering they had just stopped his brother’s heart. Nevertheless, he’s a rather cool guy and offered a very good almost-solution to the issue of this whole episode.

From vampire-diaries.net

Up until this point, I’m sure many viewers had forgotten about Damon and the fact he was still with Klaus’ coffin somewhere until his distant voice comes through on the phone with a role of Elena’s eyes. This was one of my favourite parts of the episode simply for the fact that it made me sit there and giggle at Damon’s little comments. The “No! No, no, no, no. Did I mention, no?!” did highlight how, on the one hand Damon would control every part of Elena’s life if it were up to him to keep her safe but on the other Stefan is only concerned with what Elena wants. I personally think she’s done pretty well when she’s gone off by herself in the past but then equally, she does sometimes need babysitting. But is that only because it is so often enforced on her? It was only a matter of minutes before that she was being “coddled” on the couch by some lovely, but rather protective, friends. It is no wonder that she is constantly trying to break away and sort her own life out for once.

 And yet even though Stefan allows her to make the decision to trust Elijah, Matt is the one to take this choice away from her again. I'm not really sure how I feel about Matt drugging Elena with the “over-honeyed” tea. Like in The Reckoning, I love the fact that he is becoming a more active character and significant in the way that the events of an episode turn out. Plus, it’s obvious that he is only doing what he feels is best to keep Elena safe (man, she must get tired of people saying that to her). However, his betrayal of her trust and the distraction he provides about the Salvatore brothers whilst she sips the drug was really quite shocking for a character who, up until this point, had really been genuinely good. Yeah, okay, his intentions were still good but I did think he’d be siding with Stefan over the whole let-Elena-make-her-own-choices thing (she is 18 after all) rather than kidnapping her.

The death of Klaus, Rebekah’s immediate breakdown and Damon’s sickened look as he realises the bloodline could die was another fantastic scene. Claire Holt’s performance was, once again, perfect. I really do love this lady and her character who has fast become another one of my favourites- I hope they bring her back, she added so much spice to the episodes.

Thanks to vampire-diaries.net for these pictures

So supposedly Klaus is dead. Yet one thing I noticed is that Alaric was so quick to assume that the dagger would work, he took it straight out as Klaus went up in flames, closed the coffin and turned his attention elsewhere. Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing and we know that Klaus is indeed saved but I think I’ll be with many fans when I say that I hope Joseph Morgan returns to the series! The impact he’s had over the last season and a half has been huge and the reaction so positive despite his character being pure evil so I imagine that he will be making an appearance in the future. If not, I will personally steal the scripts and re-write them with him in it!

That phonecall, the heartbreaking one where we see Elena finally make a choice between the Salvatore brothers, reminded us again of the “one big proverbial coin toss” of the brother’s lives when it comes to Elena. I am glad that, whilst there were obviously a thousand other things going on, this grounding for the series was never forgotten or even sidelined. The decision Elena makes did cause me disappointment as I thought that this signified the end of any hope of a Delena hook up. But no, no! Hang on there- there is definitely still hope for them. Remember when a person becomes a vampire, they remember that which they were made to forget through compulsion? Well the first time she meets Damon, his confession of his love for her, it'll all come flooding back. Oh yeah, Elena is in for some confusing feelings when we see her for the first time next season. Poor girl. Or lucky girl, depending on which way you look at it.

I have to admit, I was almost converted to Team Stelena in this episode with that romantic if-I-never-see-you-again kiss. It hurts me a little to say it but he is so obviously the right guy for her and yet Damon would provide her with so much excitement. If I was Elena I’d have an equally tough time deciding between the two of them. But as she points out to Matt “When I choose one, I’ll lose the other” and Elena has lost so many people. She has mourned Jenna and her parents, and she is even without her real parents (Isabel and John) as well as Alaric by the end of this episode. It really is no wonder that this girl doesn’t want to go through any more pain. So I think we can forgive her for not making a choice more quickly.

There is also something to be said about Bonnie’s role in this episode. I’d love it if her character had more of a storyline rather than just being a run-to everytime the others need some witchy help and I think this use of dark magic- which started in the previous episode with her stopping of Klaus’ heartbeat- could be it. As much as I don’t want her to start on a downward spiral, I think this could be a really great storyline and allow Kat to show off her acting abilities by being a little bit evil. By keeping Klaus alive in Tyler’s body, “the spirits won’t be happy” with Bonnie but it’s the best of both worlds- we get to see the gorgeous Tyler but there is still hope for our favey JMo to come back.

So what does this mean for next season? Serious excitement for TVD fans, that’s what. I cannot wait to see how the writers create Elena’s transition and how she will deal with this future that was forced upon her. I'm pretty sure that she'll see through the transition but will she embrace her new life or hate it? And I wonder how she will react to the others? Now that she knows she really did meet Damon first and one could argue her meeting and falling in love with Stefan was down to him, will she change her mind about her choice? Plus, how will she feel about Meredith and Rebekah? Will she seek to blame someone for her predicament? I know the first thing I’d do would be to go all Katheriney and hunt down Rebekah for making me relive that accident. In fact, I would love to see Elena struggle with her niceness in the coming season and maybe see flickers of Katherine in her as the resentment, frustration and anger that she will undoubtedly feel begins to surface.

Wherever the writers choose to go with this storyline, there is no doubt that it will be epic and I personally will be obsessing over its potential until the show is back on our screens in autumn.

Be Proud of Who You Are

So yesterday on the news, there was a lot of coverage about the new pack being giving to parents and young girls about body image. It comes on the back of the coroner's condemnation of the fashion industry for the suicide of a 14 year old girl after she had been suffering from an eating disorder. The fashion industry has been blamed for the death of Fiona Geraghty because of its obsession over weight and being thin and ‘perfect’ as their models are shown to be.

This is something that has really touched me, in a way that both saddens and yet angers me greatly. The photos that have been shown of Fiona are positively stunning and it is with great regret that she obviously had no idea that she was beautiful. Having been through, and still going through, paranoia about my own body and the way I look, I can understand, to a certain extent, how young girls must feel when they are constantly bombarded with images of perfect bodies from the media. I know all about retouching in photographs and I am so supportive of magazines and companies which have employed a zero-retouching policy or use what they call ‘real women’ for their advertisements. Even as I was looking through a magazine the other day, my friend said to me “But Rachel, they don’t actually look like that” as I was busy getting depressed over what a state I felt my body look like compared with the skinny size 6 girls. This brought everything into proportion.

I am often described as living in a fantasy world where I have an extremely romanticised view of life which often is never fulfilled and the very fact that I ogle at these ‘perfect’ people and wish to be like them actually shows how deluded I am sometimes. But I am fortunate enough to have had my eyes opened unlike many of the young girls in society today upon whom the pressure to look and be perfect can only be growing.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that this fake perfection seen in celebrities has actually come to be seen as ‘normal’, as what girls are ‘supposed’ to look like. Meanwhile, what is actually normal, what girls and women actually look like has come to be seen as imperfect and undesirable. Let’s be realistic- there are going to be those women out there who are gorgeous, who do have that perfect body with seemingly no flaws but they are either extremely, ridiculously fortunate or a slave to their appearance. Personally, I would never want to be so hung up on how I looked that I became that obsessed with being thin and working out all the time (I also don't have the time). Yet unfortunately this is becoming more and more common.

I will be the first to admit that I am far from ‘perfect’. 90-odd per cent of women have cellulite (and the majority of the remaining women were probably lying), a similar amount have stretch marks and many, including me, will complain about an unending amount of things that is wrong with them, probably with weight being at the forefront of it all. But perhaps what is the most comforting thing is that it is normal. So many women share these so called ‘imperfections’ that even Britney Spears released unretouched photos of her Candies shoot a few years back to support women with their body image. (Check the photos out here. I personally think she looks better in the unretouched ones simply before she doesn’t look like a plastic dolly).

The pressure on women and girls to be the 'correct' weight is only further triggered by stick thin celebrities in the media. One thing that has always puzzled me is why size 4 or size 6 (UK) or sometimes even thinner models are used to model designers’ clothes. Not only do I often think that the clothes look a hell of a lot better by the time they’ve hit the shops anyway but that a woman with curves would make the actual clothes look amazing! Women are meant to be curvy, we’re meant to have a waist, a bum and boobs. None of this stick-like shape seen on the catwalks which I personally find gross and if any man out there wants to disagree, go ahead and try and persuade me that these women are more attractive than, say, Beyoncé. For the record, this woman is my idol. She’s super talented, grounded and, yes, whilst many of her photos are probably retouched, she is not a stick! She simply celebrates being herself and being a woman.

The whole point is that the human body is not perfect. If it were, everybody would be the same and lack individuality- everybody would be a nobody. If it were meant to be perfect, we would have been made to be perfect. But the perfection in the media isn't a perfect which is beautiful, stunning and gorgeous, instead that type of perfection is unrealistically flawless, plastic-like and manufactured, something which is often never real and can only be achieved via computer editing.

Over the last year and through meeting my uni friends, I have come to realise that I am too hung up on the way I look and the suicide case of Fiona has made me want to change. Here is a photo of me: no make up and nothing to enhance anything. A few months ago I would have hated to look at that and picked out so many things that I wanted to change. For ages I have always hated what my mum calls my 'J Lo bum' and my thighs. Now, I look and think, what the hell was I thinking? That’s me. I am completely unique and my big bum and those spots (which looking at this photo I now realise you can hardly see and this was a 'bad' day!) are what make me, me. So if anybody tries to tell you that you should look like anything other than yourself, screw them because it’s a load of crap. There is only one of you, and you are who you are, so make the most of your life and go and celebrate that gorgeous body... Rant over :) xoxo