The Hunger Games, again

Finished the third book. All I can say is that my early enthusiasm for book one turned to dread by the end of the third.

I'll try not to give too much away here, but there may be inadvertent spoilers.

The first book was tightly written with a believable, self-consistent plot device that drove the action forward. There was a logic to it and a sense of justice. It felt like the good could overcome the bad even in the most dire of circumstances.

By the end of the third book, that moral compass had been flipped on its head. The bad overcame the good just when you thought everything would be ok. So many likable characters ended up dead in such quick succession that I started questioning if there would be anyone around to finish the book.

To me, the third book had the same emotional landscape as a movie called "House of 1000 Corpses", directed by Rob Zombie. It's a torture porn movie (like "Saw" or "Hostel"). In the first half, you get to know a chummy group of 4 college age friends on a road trip. In the second half, you get to watch them be tortured to death.