A lot of people do find it rather patronising to be offered charity, even when they can really use it, especially if they are actually working to earn their money. Not saying it makes sense, but it does happen, and I can find it easy enough to believe that a group of adults who have lived rough lives (the book seems to consider them as such) and have managed to survive through their own means could prefer to receive any charity through the act of a kid making a purchase, even if they did realise that it's an unneccessary one.
And the gathering up money for the tributes could make sense in the context that the victor's District gets free food packages for a year, which could help feed the starving kids (this was mentioned briefly in the first book, and this book does later go on to talk about the kids' getting to eat), although I do think the book would have done better presenting this as a normal thing--something like "Greasy Sae was in charge of organising this year's collection for the tributes" or something.
The book later does talk about Katniss delivering extra food around the district, so she does seem to be sharing the wealth somewhat, which was nice--doesn't change it's problems, but it seems to maybe be trying, I guess.
I'm about half way through "Catching Fire" now and so far I've found it an enormous improvement over the last book. It still has it's problems, but at least it seems to address some of the issues the first book had somewhat. In fact, if the romance were cut out of the book, it might even border on being decent. Sadly, love triangles have become something of a genre convention with YA books, despite most authors utterly failing to pull them off well (I don't mind love triangles when they are done well and neccessary for the plot, although preferably kept in the background over all).
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Date: 2012-01-30 02:55 pm (UTC)And the gathering up money for the tributes could make sense in the context that the victor's District gets free food packages for a year, which could help feed the starving kids (this was mentioned briefly in the first book, and this book does later go on to talk about the kids' getting to eat), although I do think the book would have done better presenting this as a normal thing--something like "Greasy Sae was in charge of organising this year's collection for the tributes" or something.
The book later does talk about Katniss delivering extra food around the district, so she does seem to be sharing the wealth somewhat, which was nice--doesn't change it's problems, but it seems to maybe be trying, I guess.
I'm about half way through "Catching Fire" now and so far I've found it an enormous improvement over the last book. It still has it's problems, but at least it seems to address some of the issues the first book had somewhat. In fact, if the romance were cut out of the book, it might even border on being decent. Sadly, love triangles have become something of a genre convention with YA books, despite most authors utterly failing to pull them off well (I don't mind love triangles when they are done well and neccessary for the plot, although preferably kept in the background over all).