AUDIOBOOK REVIEW: Finding God in The Hunger Games by Ken Gire

Ok, I’ll admit it: I laughed out loud when I read the title of this book.  I only listened to Ken Gire’s Finding God in The Hunger Games out of sheer morbid curiosity.  And I have to tell you, it’s actually not that bad of a book, with its main redeeming feature being its short length.  Despite its brevity, “short and sweet” is not really a fitting descriptor.  It’s more like “quick and painless.”

Really the title of this book should have been called Finding Ourselves in The Hunger Games, because most of the book is an examination of human nature more than anything else.  Suzanne Collins found her inspiration for The Hunger Games series in humanity’s historical obsession with gladiatorial combat and our current obsession with reality television.  Gire digs into the “why” of those obsessions more than The Hunger Games film itself does.

I should mention that this book is focused much more on the film version than the original novel.  Much of Finding God in The Hunger Games is Gire “nerding out” about how much he loves movies.  I’m right there with him.

Gire readily admits that God is conspicuously missing from the whole Hunger Games world—just like the biblical book of Esther, he also points out.  Did he just compare The Hunger Games to the Word of God?  Thankfully he doesn’t reduce himself to attaching spiritual metaphors to all the characters and situations (i.e. Katniss is like Jesus and President Snow is Satan, etc.).  I was worried about that.  In fact, he takes time to call out those who do reduce themselves to such activities—usually in the blogosphere and on internet message boards.

Also, Gire does recognize one important truth: Katniss Everdeen is a truly unique heroine, in both film and literature alike.  She is tough, yet tender; “a hunter, but not a killer.”  She is more complex and nuanced than female characters typically are, especially those written for the young-adult fiction genre.  He uses the Katniss character as a jumping-off point for discussion about God having both perfectly masculine and perfectly feminine qualities.  In doing so, he fleshes out a complex theological idea in a way I was not expecting in a book like this, and it was really refreshing.  Touché, Mr. Gire.

David Cochran Heath does a fine job narrating, and you could do a lot worse than giving this short book a listen.  You probably won’t appreciate the “spiritual subtleties” of The Hunger Games any more or less after listening, but you just might learn something.  I did.

Please Note: This audiobook was gifted as a part of the Christianaudio Reviewers Program in exchange for my unbiased review of this work. This has in no way influenced my opinion or review of this work.  More information can be found about this and other Christian audiobooks at christianaudio.com.