The Hunger Gays by Nathan Alexander
My rating: 3/5 cats
i was amazed by all the low star-ratings on here before i read this, because LOOK AT THAT COVER!! it is hilarious and wonderful. how could it be anything but a fantastic read??
but now i get it. not because it is bad—i actually enjoyed it very much. but it really depends upon your motivation for reading it in the first place. for people who are looking for porn, there is too much actual plot. for people looking for a The Hunger Games retelling, it is too porny. me, i was looking for parody, but it’s not that, not really.
it is more of an homage. it is not looking to take The Hunger Games, insert gay characters, and have itself a campy laugh. this book takes itself very seriously. you can tell by the attention to detail, and the strength of the character development. this is not a flimsy whim of a story—there is actual thought put in here to the backstory and the world-building. true, a lot of the foundational world-building has technically been done by Suzanne Collins, but enough details have been changed to allow this to stand as its own thing, with a huge wink and a tip of the hat to the book it is riffing off of.
and i enjoyed it—the characters are sympathetic, the premise even more disturbing then the The Hunger Games, and it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, which is unheard of in erotic literature. because, oh yeah, there is plenty of terrible, horrible, violent intercourse. for all you romantics out there, there is also some tender lovemaking, but during the tournament itself, it is just an erotically masochistic free-for-all, which is wince-y and graphic and that alone is worth the price of admission, right? especially since the price of admission on netgalley is FREE!
there is one little continuity error—a fact is dropped before it is later used as a “surprising reveal,” but in this genre, that is not a deal-breaker and is actually a sign of some pretty impressive editing. typos, yes, there are those too, but again—not at all a deal-breaker to those of us who have been exposed to much much worse in similar works.
am i a horrible person for enjoying this? probably, but welcome to karen. i am someone who is just so delighted when i come across books like this that i can’t even contain my glee and must read and share. it will most likely not make the new york times bestseller list, and that is precisely why you need people like me to put it in front of you. so, you’re welcome, and of course:
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