So this post is a long time coming. I can't tell you how many times I have thought about writing this blog post. How many different versions of this blog post that could have existed but had now been forgotten due to the test of time.
I was going to write it after I saw Mockingjay Part 2, two years after it's release. (This is partly because of issues that I couldn't get the cinema at the time of seeing it. I will discuss more later.) Alone. In my room. With the lights off. As I slowly cried, even though I didn't cry at half the deaths in the film.
I was also going to write this once there was prequel news and the Ballard of Songbirds and Snakes was announced. It even got published by accident so some of you might have seen my empty blog post published but still I couldn't write it.
Fast forward to last week. My family, in this whole lockdown situation, started to rewatch the series. They were on TV so I started to watch Catching Fire and I felt something in me. That feeling in my stomach of something that means the whole world to me. I couldn't watch it with them because it made me too emotional so instead, I went to my room. I read and watched films instead.
I knew it was time to write about it. I was going to post this last week but it didn't happen. So here we are now and it is happening. (Hopefully, I will finish it. Only if that I can finally take it off my To-Do List.)
So why did it take so long? Well, it is a long story so let's start from the beginning.
I was a Twilight obsession teenager who couldn't get into YA Paranormal romance. I tried a couple of books but they were just not for me. I was looking for something more. Flip to me watching some random MTV Movie Awards and a teaser trailer comes on TV. It is for The Hunger Games a new film that is coming out the next year. (I rewatched the trailer, I don't know why I was interested but... Thank God I did!) I must have been hooked. I found out that they were books and I remember going into the school library if they had the books. We had one set. The librarian was reading them.
Cut to the Christmas holidays I go into the Works and on there 3 for £5 offer is The Hunger Games. I buy the whole set and everything changed.
This is all really dramatic but I don't think that I would be who I am today without the Hunger Games.
First, let's start with books. Of course, when I started reading The Hunger Games, it literally opened a can of worms. I had so many books that I love now. The Maze Runner. Divergent. The Blood Red Road series. Unwind and so many more.
This also led me to discover so much more including Booktube and my then fangirl presence on Twitter. I could now connect with so many more people who loved the series as much as I did. I finally felt less alone being a reader. I also have fond memories of Twitter Hunger Games and I am still a little bitter that I didn't win any of the games ever.
I also discovered Booktube in this period and remember watching CassJayTuck Catching Fire trailer teaser reaction and laughing hysterically at her chanting Finnick at the top of her lungs and I agreed. I'm also sure that I got so many recommendations for this period and of course, I still watch Booktube today so...
This may be quite weird because I run a book blog but this film made me really into films. I loved seeing who was going to be in future films and who was going to be producing and directing. It allowed me to see what really goes into making a film. This made me really excited for this series as well as other YA book to movie adaptations. This then made me get into films in general.
I think most of you are probably aware that Jennifer Lawrence is a good actress and after The Hunger Games film came out I basically watched all of her other films especially the indie ones. The ones that hit me the most was Winter's Bone and Like Crazy, both of which are good films and introduced me to indie films which are some of my favourites now.
Due to her future film roles, I became increasingly interested in the Oscars and the whole Academy Awards circuit which I now try to watch religiously and follow all of the action. This interest has made me really interested to not only write my own books but to also be involved in filmmaking and screenwriting. I think the impact made me more knowledgable in the film industry and was one of the reasons why I wanted to write in the first place. So yeah it means a lot to me.
Before I read The Hunger Games, I had, of course, had read female characters as leads of the story but someone like Katniss going through hell and back is a complex character and the books conveyed this so well! I go back to her and she is just by far one of my favourite characters ever, even if I do get a couple of confused stares in real life.
As well as being a fundamental time in my life when I initially started the series, The Hunger Games series has been one that I have come back to in my life. I remember not feeling the best when I reread Mockingjay and it was weird to think that it could give me comfort, but it did during that time. I even respected the ending more than the first read. It's weird because I haven't read them recently but everyone else is. I think I wanted to reread them sometime soon but I have SO much to read so we shall see.
I think that it is safe to say that the Hunger Games literally changed who I was a person. They were literally my coming of age story and it was everything that I needed when I found them.
I think that one of the things that got me was when I realised that the final film was going to come out when I was at university. I had dreams that I would finally be able to go to the premier. Wait outside and see everyone who had helped shape me as a human being.
Cut to me. Watching the live feed in my room at university. I remember that I just went to the kitchen and started making dinner with my flatmates. I think that I realised that the series had helped me through so much and now it was over.
I had to change and I didn't want it to be over.
For it to be over meant growing up and I didn't want that. Hence the tears when I finally watched it two years later. It was finally over and it was no longer the biggest part of my life. It had done so much for me as a human and now it was gone. I think that it something that I will hold with forever. I will always love this series with every fibre of being. After all, it did make me.
(On a different note I also still haven't watched The Death Cure film and that also came out two years ago because The Maze Runner was also an influential series for me. I just don't want to talk about James Dashner though and I think that The Hunger Games influenced more.)
See you soon,
Amy
I was going to write it after I saw Mockingjay Part 2, two years after it's release. (This is partly because of issues that I couldn't get the cinema at the time of seeing it. I will discuss more later.) Alone. In my room. With the lights off. As I slowly cried, even though I didn't cry at half the deaths in the film.
I was also going to write this once there was prequel news and the Ballard of Songbirds and Snakes was announced. It even got published by accident so some of you might have seen my empty blog post published but still I couldn't write it.
Fast forward to last week. My family, in this whole lockdown situation, started to rewatch the series. They were on TV so I started to watch Catching Fire and I felt something in me. That feeling in my stomach of something that means the whole world to me. I couldn't watch it with them because it made me too emotional so instead, I went to my room. I read and watched films instead.
I knew it was time to write about it. I was going to post this last week but it didn't happen. So here we are now and it is happening. (Hopefully, I will finish it. Only if that I can finally take it off my To-Do List.)
So why did it take so long? Well, it is a long story so let's start from the beginning.
I was a Twilight obsession teenager who couldn't get into YA Paranormal romance. I tried a couple of books but they were just not for me. I was looking for something more. Flip to me watching some random MTV Movie Awards and a teaser trailer comes on TV. It is for The Hunger Games a new film that is coming out the next year. (I rewatched the trailer, I don't know why I was interested but... Thank God I did!) I must have been hooked. I found out that they were books and I remember going into the school library if they had the books. We had one set. The librarian was reading them.
Cut to the Christmas holidays I go into the Works and on there 3 for £5 offer is The Hunger Games. I buy the whole set and everything changed.
This is all really dramatic but I don't think that I would be who I am today without the Hunger Games.
First, let's start with books. Of course, when I started reading The Hunger Games, it literally opened a can of worms. I had so many books that I love now. The Maze Runner. Divergent. The Blood Red Road series. Unwind and so many more.
This also led me to discover so much more including Booktube and my then fangirl presence on Twitter. I could now connect with so many more people who loved the series as much as I did. I finally felt less alone being a reader. I also have fond memories of Twitter Hunger Games and I am still a little bitter that I didn't win any of the games ever.
I also discovered Booktube in this period and remember watching CassJayTuck Catching Fire trailer teaser reaction and laughing hysterically at her chanting Finnick at the top of her lungs and I agreed. I'm also sure that I got so many recommendations for this period and of course, I still watch Booktube today so...
This may be quite weird because I run a book blog but this film made me really into films. I loved seeing who was going to be in future films and who was going to be producing and directing. It allowed me to see what really goes into making a film. This made me really excited for this series as well as other YA book to movie adaptations. This then made me get into films in general.
I think most of you are probably aware that Jennifer Lawrence is a good actress and after The Hunger Games film came out I basically watched all of her other films especially the indie ones. The ones that hit me the most was Winter's Bone and Like Crazy, both of which are good films and introduced me to indie films which are some of my favourites now.
Due to her future film roles, I became increasingly interested in the Oscars and the whole Academy Awards circuit which I now try to watch religiously and follow all of the action. This interest has made me really interested to not only write my own books but to also be involved in filmmaking and screenwriting. I think the impact made me more knowledgable in the film industry and was one of the reasons why I wanted to write in the first place. So yeah it means a lot to me.
Before I read The Hunger Games, I had, of course, had read female characters as leads of the story but someone like Katniss going through hell and back is a complex character and the books conveyed this so well! I go back to her and she is just by far one of my favourite characters ever, even if I do get a couple of confused stares in real life.
As well as being a fundamental time in my life when I initially started the series, The Hunger Games series has been one that I have come back to in my life. I remember not feeling the best when I reread Mockingjay and it was weird to think that it could give me comfort, but it did during that time. I even respected the ending more than the first read. It's weird because I haven't read them recently but everyone else is. I think I wanted to reread them sometime soon but I have SO much to read so we shall see.
I think that it is safe to say that the Hunger Games literally changed who I was a person. They were literally my coming of age story and it was everything that I needed when I found them.
I think that one of the things that got me was when I realised that the final film was going to come out when I was at university. I had dreams that I would finally be able to go to the premier. Wait outside and see everyone who had helped shape me as a human being.
Cut to me. Watching the live feed in my room at university. I remember that I just went to the kitchen and started making dinner with my flatmates. I think that I realised that the series had helped me through so much and now it was over.
I had to change and I didn't want it to be over.
For it to be over meant growing up and I didn't want that. Hence the tears when I finally watched it two years later. It was finally over and it was no longer the biggest part of my life. It had done so much for me as a human and now it was gone. I think that it something that I will hold with forever. I will always love this series with every fibre of being. After all, it did make me.
(On a different note I also still haven't watched The Death Cure film and that also came out two years ago because The Maze Runner was also an influential series for me. I just don't want to talk about James Dashner though and I think that The Hunger Games influenced more.)
Has any series made you? If so, what was it? Let me know in the comments below!
See you soon,
Amy
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