I'm coming in a year late, but I was recently talked into reading this book by a group of friends who love, love, love it with all their hearts. And -- I was struck by all the problems you note here. The constant woman-hate. The homophobia. The pure lily gold whiteness of the ruling class (are they seriously all blond and golden-eyed and golden-skinned? Really?!).
I kept wondering whether the author deliberately set out to rewrite The Hunger Games and put women back in our "proper" incompetent, non-threatening, non-heroic place. Except the jarring thing is, the "point" of the book seems to be that it's wrong to hate people for their castes -- so shouldn't it be wrong to hate people for our gender and sexual orientation as well? So I'm just confused. But I'm really mystified as to why more readers don't see these problems and call them out. Thank you so much for this review!
I kept wondering whether the author deliberately set out to rewrite The Hunger Games and put women back in our "proper" incompetent, non-threatening, non-heroic place. Except the jarring thing is, the "point" of the book seems to be that it's wrong to hate people for their castes -- so shouldn't it be wrong to hate people for our gender and sexual orientation as well? So I'm just confused. But I'm really mystified as to why more readers don't see these problems and call them out. Thank you so much for this review!