Blessed Are They That Hunger: Young Adult Fiction, America, and the Bible

By Cindy Biondi Gobrecht

Why are millions of young adults fans of the dark tale of The Hunger Games trilogy? This was the question Cindy Biondi Gobrecht asked after seeing the first Hunger Games movie and reading the books. She began to research the themes in the book and how they relate to our current American culture. The themes of violence, war, injustice, oppression, loneliness, poverty, and hopelessness found in the dystopian world of The Hunger Games are problems today and a warning of more to come. Todays young adults are astute enough to understand this. Action must be taken to return America to the country it once was. What does the Bible say about the themes of The Hunger Games, and how can we apply those truths to be the change that America needs? Ms. Gobrecht answers these questions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490838359

Cindy Biondi Gobrecht

Cindy Biondi Gobrecht is the author of Confessions of a Christian Twi-hard: My Life Lessons and the Twilight Saga. She led bible studies for over thirty years in California and South Carolina. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in linguistics with minors in literature and anthropology from the University of California San Diego. She blogs about Christianity and popular culture in America.

Book preview

cover.jpg

Copyright © 2014 Cindy Biondi Gobrecht.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3834-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3835-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014909429

WestBow Press rev. date: 5/29/2014

CONTENTS

Prologue

We Hunger For Kindness

We Hunger For Peace

We Hunger For Freedom

We Hunger For Leadership

We Hunger For Sustenance

We Hunger For Justice

We Hunger For God

We Hunger For Nature

We Hunger For Truth

We Hunger For Love

We Hunger For Hope

PROLOGUE

I didn’t want to watch The Hunger Games movie. When I heard what it was about, I couldn’t understand how there could be such a craze over the books. It sounded horrible. The story is about a futuristic version of the Roman Coliseum where murder is entertainment and those who are murdered are children.

The media compared The Hunger Games to The Twilight Saga. Both were a series of books written for the teen and young adult audience. Both had a huge following of readers and sold millions of copies. It was anticipated that there would also be the same frenzy surrounding the release of the films that The Twilight Saga enjoyed. There would be thousands of fans camping out for days, hoping to get a glimpse of the actors in the starring roles. There would be sold-out theaters at midnight showings and huge box-office sales.

It also was reported that many of the so-called Twihards—the Twilight fans—were also Hunger Games fans. The Twilight Internet fan sites gave permission for this supposed lapse in loyalty and promoted The Hunger Games fan sites as sister fan sites. There was, of course, a certain amount of competition between the two fan clubs. I know this because I am a Twilight fan.

The Hunger Games did break a few records and did create a lot of frenzy similar to The Twilight Saga films. Because of this, I was curious and decided to see the movie.

I expected the violence. I expected the shock of seeing violence against children. What I didn’t expect was the bleak hopelessness of the world created in The Hunger Games. Though the first book has a supposedly happy ending, because the two main characters do survive the games, I left the movie feeling depressed. I wondered how this story could be so popular among this generation. What does it tell us about their views of our current society? What does it tell us about their hopes for the future?