The Hunger Pains: A parody by The Harvard Lampoon
Genres: Adventure, Comedy, Dystopia, Parody, Sci-Fi
Intended Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster
Edition: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6820-9
Rating: 2/5
Amazon Barnes&Noble ThriftBooks
Description from the Book
When Kantkiss Neverclean replaces her sister as a contestant on the Hunger Games – the second-highest rated reality TV show in Peaceland, behind Extreme Home Makeover – she has no idea what to expect.
Having Lived her entire life in the telemarketing district’s worst neighborhood, the Crack, Kantkiss feels unprepared to fight to the death while simultaneously winking and looking adorable for the cameras. But when her survival rests on choosing between dreamy hunk from home, Carol Handsomestein, or doughy klutz, Pita Malarkey, Kantkiss discovers that the toughest conflicts may not be on the battlefield but in her own heart…which is unfortunately on a battlefield.
Personal & Info
This book is a parody novel of The Hunger Games. It’s fairly short, at about 157 pages. I’ve seen several parody movies of things, but never read a parody novel. My curiosity won out and made me grab this book, since it was cheap.
Based on the appearance of the book alone, I’m impressed. The cover is essentially identical to the source material, except for the position of the bird. Not only that, but the chapter and page numbers are also decorated with the same touches as the Hunger Games novel. Effort was obviously made to make it visually recognizable as a parody and to give the pages the same feel.
Characters
As usual for a parody, the characters have silly and ridiculous names that sound close enough to the original to work out who is which original character. I’m only going to list a few of them as examples, because learning the names is part of the comedy.
Kantkiss Neverclean – Katniss Everdeen
Pita Malarkey – Peeta Mellark
Carol Handsomestein – Gale Hawthorne
Cinnabon – Cinna
Effu Poorpeople – Effie Trinket
I’m sure you get the idea.
Story & Thoughts
I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this. A novel parody can’t be the same as you would expect a movie parody to be, right? Wrong. This book is exactly what I expect movie parodies to be. In fact, this book should have been a movie instead of a novel.
The majority of the comedy is based on low intelligence and gags that would be way better as visuals. For example, there’s a scene where Kantkiss and Carol are harvesting a cow, and they pull out T-bone steaks and things that a butcher would obviously have to prepare. That scene would go over better with visual props.
Using the buffoon main character trope is taking the easy and boring way to write comedy. Kantkiss is so ridiculously unintelligent that she doesn’t know how to sit on a sofa. She misunderstands everyone else’s feelings and hopelessly sees the good in people to the point of misinterpreting everything they say. Her thoughts and behavior imply she’s so deranged that it’s amazing she could have even survived to become a teenager in the first place. It felt like the writers were either trying way too hard to make things funny, or weren’t trying hard enough.
There are some good gags in the book, though. Changing the specialties of the districts to stuff like telemarketing and theater was pretty funny. Haymitch’s parody character having a gambling problem instead of a drinking problem as an ongoing joke was pretty good, too. There just wasn’t a good balance of the good gags versus the blatantly silly stuff.
If I had to describe what the overall comedy is like, I think it’s a bit juvenile for the age group. People under fifteen might think it’s hilarious, but people over fifteen might think it’s meh. But obviously that also depends on your taste in comedy. I prefer things a bit more witty, but if you like things a bit more idiotic, this might be something you’d enjoy.
I think I would have liked this more if it were a movie. My expectations are a bit different for a book. I can’t exactly say I like it, but I can’t really say I don’t either. I’ll likely keep it as a novelty for my Hunger Games set.
Content Warnings
There’s obviously violence in this book because, duh, The Hunger Games, but there’s something specific that might bother some people. A baby dies in a rather violent manner.