Fan Phenomena: The Hunger Games Nicola Balkind 9781783202041

An exciting dystopian fantasy thriller series, The Hunger Games began its life as a trilogy of books by Suzanne Collins, the first released in 2008. An immediate success, the first instalment had a first printing of 50,000 hardcover copies, which quickly ballooned to 200,000. Spending one hundred consecutive weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, the book was put into development for release on the big screen. The first film, starring Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, broke box office records, and all of its sequels are expected to follow suit. Fan Phenomena: The Hunger Games charts the series' success through the increasingly vocal online communities that drive the young adult book market. Essays here consider the fashion that the series has created and how the costumes, memorabilia, merchandising and branding have become an ever bigger part of the fandom experience. Issues explored include debates over the movie stars' race and size, which tap into greater issues within the fan community and popular culture in general and the current argument that has divided fans and critics: whether or not the third book, Mockingjay, should be split into two films.

Nicola Balkind is a writer and digital freelancer based in Glasgow, Scotland, and the editor of World Film Locations: Glasgow.

'Too often "fandom" gets branded as a place where the crazies live, but that undermines just how smart and passionate these fans can be. This book is structured around the main themes and criticisms of the Hunger Games series and, as such, provides an insight into the primary concerns of fan culture.'

'Fan Phenomena introduces not only a compilation of ideas from academics and writers but also bloggers and dedicated fan fiction writers.'