I began by badmouthing "The Hunger Games" at work, calling it shallow, unoriginal, and completely undeserving of the praise showered upon it by all the bored housewives and Harry Potter junkies that seem to love it, amongst so many others.  My remarks were met with outrage and condescension; I seem to have destroyed my credibility with the entire accounting department comprised of lonely middle-aged blonde ladies who, I'm guessing, read only the most popular tripe to hit the fad shelves, a couple books a year.  It's not that I didn't like "The Hunger Games," at first.  I did begin, after the first 100 pages, by drawing comparisons with "Ender's Game," and, after a regrettable Facebook post in which I stated this fact, received an unusual number of comments saying things like: "Alright, you caught my attention with the Ender reference. I may have to sacrifice my long run of book avoidance..."  I must apologize.  I am so sorry.  Please forget what I said.  Don't bother with this book!

I only thought of "Ender's Game" because "The Hunger Games" involves a child protagonist in a dystopian society of the future thrust into a "game" of sorts that holds bitter consequences the protagonist fails to fully understand.  And I only read "The Hunger Games" because of my experience with the Harry Potter series in which I originally turned my nose up at, feeling a series written for children and with such mainstream popularity was probably not for someone like me, but with Mr. Potter I was forced to eat my disparaging sentiments and came to fully enjoy all seven of the Harry Potter books.  I thought, maybe, "The Hunger Games" would be like that.  I was wrong.

The only thing remotely interesting about "The Hunger Games" is the fucking Mocking Jay.  Besides that, it is a blatant ripoff of Koushun Takami's "Battle Royale" ('99), mixed in, if we're being generous, with messy dollops of King's "The Long Walk" and "The Running Man."  I mean, the story is exactly the same as "Battle Royale," minus any sort of character depth or psychological importance.  The writing is poorly edited and uninspiring; it jumps and sputters along awkwardly.  Katniss, our 16-year-old protagonist, is emotionally dull, somehow completely unaware that of all the boys around her who like her.  She goes through the second half of the book kissing and sharing a sleeping bag with a boy named Peeta and manages to not have a single romantic or emotional feeling, thinking it's all just a game.  The world, Panem,  is somewhat bleak, but not fully realized--I have a hard time believing these games where children are randomly selected to kill each other have gone on for 74 years and only now are people thinking of revolution and parents becoming outraged.  Is it possible no one has ever volunteered to take the place of their sibling before Katniss decided to?  Not likely.

I could go on, but I'll stop myself there.  If you can take "The Hunger Games" at face value, without thinking about things too much, you may enjoy the series--many have, after all.  My argument is only for the critical thinker, the seeker of literature like the tasting of fine wines, someone who, having tasted "The Hunger Games," might grimace, and exclaim, "Why, surely this is no wine.  This is grape Coolaid!"

"If The Shawshank Redemption had a baby by The Lovely Bones and it was raised by Judy Blume." And "it's kind of like The Breakfast Club set in Hell."
    -Chuck Palahniuk

First, I must say I admire Chuck Palahniuk's writing greatly.  I was an insufferable fanboy of Fight Club and the ideas of Gen-X rebellion it purported to encourage, and have read and enjoyed many his early works.  (Both Survivor and Choke are both highly entertaining reads).  He is filled with ideas of American parody, disgusting anecdotes, and generally disturbing and amusing ideas.  His novels are great fun to read because of these ideas and we must forgive Chuck his failings in character development and dramatic arc, at least somewhat, because of his ingenious imagination.  His writing is terse and to the point, like a contemporary Hemingway without all the subtlety and with a sense of humor.  Just look at how Palahniuk describes his novel above; he is funny, but, unfortunately, Damned just does not quite live up to its promise.

For a writer whom is all too aware of plot-lines, inciting incidents, and character flaws, (like me) Damned was not a great read.  It begins with a 13-year-old girl trapped in a cell in Hell, and then it sticks there was a while.  When the girl, Madison, escapes with her new band of friends loosely based on the stereotyped characters from The Breakfast Club, they set off into Hell without purpose or destination.  After sexually pleasuring a rampaging demon, they eventually all get jobs as telemarketers.  There is a story, of a sort, and everything that happens is interesting for its creativity and commentary on American consumerist society, but Madison doesn't much act like 13-year-old, or much like a girl for that matter; the story is episodic, with a bunch of little moments strung together.  The ending is a little more interesting, with a meta-fiction twist that I liked, but otherwise disappointing, leaving us hanging with the promise of a sequel.  Is this novel really strong enough to warrant a sequel?  I'm not so sure...

Overall, I would call this one a highly flawed yet amusing and entertaining read.  It is: a "Chuck Book."

     The nightmare came to him every night now.  Crouching in the grass, he'd light the match, drop it, and stare.  He'd enjoy watching the flames dance, and burn, and grow.  He'd feel the heat on his face and the trickles of sweat.  He'd feel powerful and alive.
     Then, he'd be standing in the forest, wreathed in flame, watching the world burn because of him.  He'd feel the loss of control, and the despair.  And his dream would shift and get weird and he'd be talking with the Melting Man even though he didn't want to.  The Melting Man would tell him things, ask him to go with him, then fade and contort.
     He'd wake, bolting upright to a sitting position, with his skin feeling hot, and flushed, and bubbly, with a scream twisted and caught in his throat but never released.  He'd wake into the guilt.  He'd nearly burned the whole goddamn neighborhood down.  He worried he might do it again, that there was something inside of him that yearned for the destruction.  Someday, he might not be able to hold back.
     At least, his mom was letting him go back to school now.  The past few days had been lonely and surreal.  Even though he didn't really like going to school, at least there were things to do and Jesse to talk to.  Time had passed like the lethargic last days of summer vacation, where he didn't want to start the new school year, but, at the same time, didn't know what to do with himself.  He couldn't be at the house--it was awful being around his mom, whose moping about just made everything that much worse--so all he could do was wander about by himself.  He wandered about the neighborhood, and down the drainage creek, and hung out in Sherwood Forest, but never felt inspired--as he often had been--to plan and build his next tree house, or fort, or collect things for his next game with Jesse.  At times he'd been so bored, he'd simply sat down somewhere--in a sandy crook or against the side of a tree--and dozed.  And he must have slept, because his dreams were vivid.
     One of those days, plodding along in the sand of the creek bed as usual, he'd seen a couple of older boys in the distance, crouched over something.  They looked down at whatever it was, their heads hunched.  One of them kicked at it.  As he stood there watching them, the kids stopped for a second, bringing there heads up, and they were much older than Jake had at first thought; their coats were torn and they had mud streaks on their cheeks.  Their eyes slid in his direction and stared.
     Jake turned, and hurried on his way.
     Another time, he lifted his head to discover a dog--some sort of brindle mutt--sniffing at his sneakers.  When he brought his hand out for the dog to sniff, the animal quickly backed away, its blond-spotted hackles rising and quivering.  Jake watched the dog stop a little ways away, lifting its head to sniff at the air.  The dog glanced at him one last time with eyes that seemed intelligent and knowing, and broke into a trot, streaking down the open creek. 
     Jake looked out across the sand and, out of the corner of his eye, saw something long and spindly rise out of the dogs back, make a motion in the air, and by the time Jake had turned his head to get a better look, the mutt was gone.  The animal was no where to be seen.
     He must have slept, and it was like his dad said: he had an imagination and he used it (even though it felt, sometimes, more like it used him).
     At one point he'd seen a little girl with a stick playing by the sidewalk as he walked by.  She'd looked at him shyly and returned to her drawings in the dirt.  Just as Jake had been about to turn the corner on to the next block, he'd heard the girl shriek, and he'd turned to see a cluster of racoons (at least, that's what he thought they were; it was hard to tell from this distance) surrounding the little girl.  He watched the racoons pounce, and the girl disappeared beneath the furry squirming creatures.
     If he'd thought what he was seeing was real, if there'd been anything he could do, he would have run back to try and help, but it couldn't be real.  He shook his head--no, it couldn't--and continued on his way.
     On his way back from school, on that first day, he came across the spot where the little girl had been.  There were no scuff marks, no sign of a struggle, like he knew there wouldn't be.  It was a spot of dirt surrounded by weeds.  Kids played around here all the time.  There was only a circle drawn in the dirt, or most of one; it was a few inches from being full, as if someone had been distracted from its completion.  There were numerous footprints and a couple of discarded bottles.  Looking around, just out of curiosity, a little ways from the circle, behind a small tangle of dried leaves in the brush, there was something else drawn in the dirt.  It was difficult to make out, the top layer of loose sand having scattered in the breeze; he had to lean down close to read it.  'Fathers kill,' it read.
     On his way back home he thought he saw another of Mrs. Marlow's gnomes wink at him.  But, of course, it was just an illusion--the sun twinkling off the pale plastic--like that finger that's always pointing at you and those eyes that always follow you on that ugly poster of Uncle Sam, the one hanging on the wall in his classroom at school; "a piece of history," his teacher called it.  There were no inappropriately arranged gnomes this time--Mrs. Marlow must have discovered those from earlier and put them back where they belonged--but there did seem to be an awful lot of the little plastic men.  Mrs. Marlow had been busy.  There was no longer space for all of them to lurk in the flowerbeds and beneath the trees; some were staked right out in the open, smiling those faint I'm-so-high little smiles. 
     Coming up to Old Man Greene's house, he noticed there were two patches of upturned soil now corroding the perfection of Greene's lawn.  "That sucks," Jake said to himself.  As he followed the sidewalk around the yard, he was alone on the street.  He heard a door slam.  He turned his head and Old Man Greene was running across his lawn in a bathrobe and slippers, brandishing a shovel, coming straight towards him. 
     "Get off my lawn," Greene yelled.  "Get off it, you little punk."
     Jake stopped; stood his ground.  "I'm walking around Mr. Greene.  I always do.  I'm Jake.  My dad's Harlan Bowden."
     Greene stood at the edge of his lawn, the shovel held parallel to the ground in both hands, looking down at Jake with red-rimmed eyes brimming with mistrust.  "Bowden's boy, huh?  What are you doing here?"
     "Just walking back from school, Mr. Greene."
     Old Man Greene's slippers were caked with mud and streaks of greenish-yellow grass stains.  His robe was also dirty, torn in one place so that it hung open at the chest.
     Greene grunted.  "Well, alright.  Get on home then."
     "Have a good day, Mr. Greene," Jake called as he headed on his way, walking fast.
     "Yeah, right.  Just look what those bastard kids made me do to my lawn."
     Jake made it around the next corner, his heart beating a little too fast, and hurried all the rest of the way home.
    
     He let himself into the house.  He passed through the living room, passed his mom slouched on the couch watching TV ("Hi, Jake."  "Hi, mom."), up the stairs, and into his room.  He closed the door firmly after him.
     He tossed his backpack on the floor, flopped on the bed, and flipped the TV on using the remote.  He sat up, kicked his sneakers off, and looked around his room.  He stood up, went to his dresser.  Buried in the top drawer, at the bottom of his balled up collection of socks and underwear, he fished out a small silver lighter he'd found the other day. 
     He just wanted to hold it.  He didn't light it.  He knew he shouldn't have picked it up, but it was just lying there on the sidewalk.
     He'd also found a couple of matchbooks.
     After a while, he put the lighter back and turned his attention to the glowing television screen.