{"id":63,"date":"2010-12-09T09:49:53","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T17:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=63"},"modified":"2015-02-07T21:10:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-08T05:10:53","slug":"mark-reads-the-hunger-games-chapter-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2010\/12\/mark-reads-the-hunger-games-chapter-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe Hunger Games\u00e2\u20ac\u2122: Chapter 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fifteenth chapter of The Hunger Games<\/em>, Katniss finds out she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alive and hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been eaten to death by ants. In the process, she makes a new friend. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Hunger Games<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like how this chapter opens.<\/p>\n

I enter a nightmare from which I wake repeatedly only to find a great terror awaiting me. All the things I dread most, all the things I dread for others manifest in such vivid detail I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but believe they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re real. Each time I wake, I think, At last, this is over<\/em>, but it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only the beginning of a new chapter of torture. How many ways do I watch Prim die? Relive my father\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last moments? Feel my own body ripped apart? This is the nature of the tracker jacker venom, so carefully created to target the place where fear lives in your brain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like how this is written. I mean, this is ripe for description! She FUCKING HALLUCINATED ANTS BORING INTO HER EYES. Why don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we get any sort of description of these dreams? They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re relegated to simple lines of prose and not even poetic ones at that.<\/p>\n
I had to say it. SORRY, THAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S HOW IT IS.<\/p>\n
Katniss wakes up in incredible pain from the stings, from running into trees, and from the after effects of the poison. She has no idea how long she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been unconscious, but she suspects it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been over twenty-four hours.<\/p>\n
It took Collins a while to get to it (and I honestly expected it sooner), but Katniss finally starts to come to the realization that she has confusing and conflicting feelings toward Peeta. She momentarily thinks of the brief discussion she had with Gale the morning of the day Prim was chosen in the reaping, where Gale suggested they run away from District 12.<\/p>\n
And suddenly, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not thinking of Gale but of Peeta and\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Peeta! He saved my life!<\/span> I think. Because by the time we met up, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell what was real and what the tracker jacker venom had caused me to imagine. But if he did, and my instincts tell me he did, what for? Is he simply working the Lover Boy angle he initiated at the interview? Or was he actually trying to protect me? And if he was, what was he doing with those Careers in the first place? None of it makes sense.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t right now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll agree with that. But Collins foreshadowed it early and has now all but confirmed that Katniss is going to have some sort of conflict between deciding how she feels about these two guys. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m also betting that Peeta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions really happened AND he did them out of respect and love for Katniss. I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6it does seem pretty obvious, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it?<\/p>\n
Katniss gains a sense of hope when she remembers that she stole the bow and arrows! Oh yeah, FROM UNDER A DISINTEGRATING BODY. Never mind that, though, because now she has the most badass weapon! Well, badass to her skill set, but still!<\/p>\n
Actually, this whole short chapter is full of moments where, for once, things actually go right for her. She kills a rabbit, gets to eat, gets rehydrated, takes a sort of bath in the pool of water, kills some sort of strange bird, and then\u00e2\u20ac\u201dTHEN!!!\u00e2\u20ac\u201dRue finds Katniss!<\/p>\n
Oh, Rue. You are so full of joy for me.<\/p>\n
Rue is from District 11, where their specialty is agriculture, and she finds leaves to help cure Katniss\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stings. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more interesting to me is the information she provides about her own district, though:<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have though, in District Eelven, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have a bit more to eat than us. You know, since you grow the food,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I say.<\/p>\n
Rue\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes widen. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Oh, no, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not allowed to eat the crops.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They arrest you or something?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I ask.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They whip you and make everyone else watch,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Rue. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They mayor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very strict about it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Ah, public humiliation. Generally a pretty effective technique.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interesting, hearing about her life. We have so little communication with anyone outside our district. In fact, I wonder if the Gamemakers are blocking out our conversation, because even though the information seems harmless, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want people in different districts to know about one another.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually know this, since Katniss seemed to demonstrate a knowledge of the other districts, but I suppose it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ideal to prevent people from learning how others are treated and, even more importantly, learning that they have things in common.<\/p>\n
Rue proves to be a little bundle of information as well. The sunglasses that were in Katniss\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pack aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually sunglasses, she says. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re night vision glasses. THESE WILL COME INTO PLAY LATER, CALLING IT NOW. Chekov\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Gun much?<\/p>\n
My heart was warmed by Katniss telling Rue to sleep in the sleeping bag with her. I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6look, the past four chapters have been so harrowing, depressing, and violent that even this brief time for us to catch our breath is welcome. Now that there are less tributes left, things are going to stretch out a bit more. (Do the Games have a time limit like the one in Battle Royale<\/em>? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recall Katniss saying they do.) I am fearing the moment that Rue dies because I have a feeling it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to happen.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the girls from Districts One and Four are the only ones who died during this debacle. Only ten tributes are left. Rue also says that Peeta has left the Careers and is off on his own; the Careers are stockpiling weapons and supplies near the lake. Rue worries aloud that they are simply too strong because they have so many supplies.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Say they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. Say the supplies were gone. How long would they last?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I say. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I mean, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the Hunger Games, right?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But, Katniss, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not hungry,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d says Rue.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the problem,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I agree. And for the first time, I have a plan. A plan that isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t motivated by the need for flight and evasion. An offensive plan. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to have to fix that, Rue.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oh, fuck yes. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about time for Katniss to turn into the BADASS OF THE CENTURY.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the fifteenth chapter of The Hunger Games, Katniss finds out she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alive and hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been eaten to death by ants. In the process, she makes a new friend. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Hunger Games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,488],"tags":[28,24,27],"class_list":["post-63","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hunger-games","category-the-hunger-games-novel","tag-katniss-everdeen","tag-mark-reads-the-hunger-games","tag-suzanne-collins"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}