I've only read Ender's Game, which I enjoyed, but I hear the rest of the series is all over the place. That being said, Hunger Games is good, but I think it too suffers from a weak finish.

 

"I volunteer."

I've read the Hunger Games series and am a huge fan.

I've read the first book in the Ender Games series and tried to read some of the others but failed. The first was pretty cool, even if the writing doesn't hold up as well, especially with Battle School. The movie basically condensed everything but it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be.

The Hunger Games books are brilliant. They do so many things that start out as almost typical YA plot and then diverge and have more darkness and maturity over "tied with a bow happy endings."

The films are not as good (although Jennifer Lawrence is amazing in everything she does, see Winter's Bone) because they cut out some of the depth and darkness. It's hard to capture Katniss's voice, the strength and anger and everything else on screen.

 

Both novels I find aggressively meh. Ender's Game has a few great ideas, a couple motifs that do pay off well, and has some compelling writing. Problem is the themes of Ender's Game really go into questionable territory that I cannot in good heart endorse (plus the author is a gigantic piece of shit), and I can say much good about the characters of that particular series.

Hunger Games I find more poorly written than Ender's Game - it tries way too hard to create a sense of urgency with the writing style and it never clicked for me - but it has some decently realized ideas and some good momentum. What frustrates me about both books (and the series that they spawned) is that neither of them makes the best use of the ideas they put forward, and neither hold up very well under repeated reads (especially the twist ending at the end of Ender's).

No disagreement with you on 50 Shades, but the Sword of Truth series really isn't as terrible as many make it out to be. Like with Ender's Game, the author is a massive dick, but I hold that the first six books of Goodkind's series is pretty damn solid, even if it is preachy, overwrought, and hyperbolic (because it totally is). What tends to sour people on the series is the massive drop-off in quality around Book 7, and I can't really blame them, especially considering Goodkind is continuing the series and seems to be running out of ideas.

 

Isn't the Sword of Truth the series where the main character slaughters a bunch of anti-war protestors?

 

That's Book 8, Naked Empire. As I said, after Book 6, things really went downhill.

 

Never been a fan of Terry Goodkind. Tried to read the Sword of Shannara Trilogy but found that I preferred the characters of Lord of the Rings when they weren't raging assholes. Tried to read the Sword of Truth and just couldn't get into it. Something about the writing style didn't click with me at all.

 

Pretty much my experience, coupled with all the weird-ass gender relations and rape stuff that made me inclined to put it down and walk away.

(But hey, the guy considers himself Ayn Rand's successor. In this respect, he's probably right.)

 

Having just reread Atlas Shrugged... yeah, when it comes to philosophy and gender politics, Goodkind is a natural successor to Rand. I think Goodkind's a more interesting writer than Rand and writes more likable characters, but that might be more from reading Atlas Shrugged and realizing that all of the protagonists are fucking miserable people.