Kindle Lists Their Top 10 Highlighted Quotes, Eight Are From The Hunger Games
May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor
As we know (and kinda love), Suzanne Collins has become the best-selling author on Kindle for The Hunger Games trilogy. However, one of the e-reader’s features, the ability to highlight a notable passage, has also been overtaken by the widely read young adult series. Amazon has posted a list of Kindle’s all-time most highlighted passages, and eight out of 10 of them come from The Hunger Games. So, it’s official: readers of The Hunger Games really like the words in The Hunger Games!
If you go even further down the list, the books of the trilogy — The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay — actually account for 20 of the top 25 most highlighted quotes. And in case you were wondering about the other two quotes in the top 10, both come from Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice (but no zombies). We’ll run the top 10 here:
1. “Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.” (Catching Fire)
2. “The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.” (The Hunger Games)
3. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” (Pride and Prejudice)
4. “It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.” (Mockingjay)
5. “’I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,’ Peeta replies.” (Catching Fire)
6. “’I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever,’ he says.” (Catching Fire)
7. “Life in District 12 isn’t really so different from life in the arena. At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.” (Catching Fire)
8. “Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” (Pride and Prejudice)
9. “’Having an eye for beauty isn’t the same thing as a weakness,’ Peeta points out. ‘Except possibly when it comes to you.’” (Catching Fire)
10. “I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.” (The Hunger Games)
This list can be interpreted and analyzed in a variety of ways. For example, it’s indicative of how The Hunger Games may have signaled a real turning point in the way people — particularly young people — read books. Yes, people of all ages have Kindles and have read the trilogy, but it’s more exciting that a book geared toward young people is getting them to read and absorb it in a way that the words get them to do more than just leaf through a book. They’re taking note of the words they read, taking in the depth of the story. And these quotes (while some are undeniably gushy-romantic) are clearly meaningful for teenagers struggling with their own coming of age, even if they aren’t facing government-sanctioned death for an audience. It’s hard to be a teenager, even in the real world, and these quotes show that a kindred spirit has been found in Katniss Everdeen.
We’re not going to argue with that.
Other books with quotes in the top 25: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, CU: Heaven Is For Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back by Todd Burpo, Sonja Burpo, Colton Burpo.
(Amazon via The Daily What)
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