Why The Hunger Games Represents The Best of the Young Adult Adaptations

I'm going to go on the record and say that I enjoy The Hunger Games franchise. They're not great movies by any stretch of the imagination, but they're mind-numbingly enjoyable as shit. Now I most certainly am not a fan of all movies that are adaptions of YA novels, but I do enjoy The Hunger Games. I think I like the franchise so much because it fills the void that Harry Potter left behind. As a man in his late 20's, I grew up on Harry Potter. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was released when I was 10, the movie adaptation was released when I was 14, and the 8th and final film came out when I was 24. The Harry Potter books and films have literally been a part of half of my entire life.

The Harry Potter franchise works because it fulfills that innate desire that we all have to want to be destined for something better, especially among little kids. As a young boy, the character Harry Potter was not only told that he's a wizard, but he's the child of two extremely popular and skilled wizards and that he defeated THE most powerful wizard known to wizard-kind. Harry Potter was not only famous in the wizard world, but he was wealthy beyond his wildest imagination. Harry Potter was an incredible athlete, would constantly get away with rule-breaking (and often get rewarded for it), and ended up saving an entire civilization. What little kid reading a book series like this wouldn't be enchanted and compelled by this world? The Harry Potter franchise gave you hope that you could be whisked away into another world where your best wishes are granted.