The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins
374 Pages
Survival, Adventure, Fantasy
Scholastic Press

If you have made it past the cover, then you are already further along than I was with this book. If I had only seen it once I would have skipped right over it missing all its scrumptious insides. What a loss! I look at that cover and think sci-fi and borring. The Hunger games is not really a true sci-fi and it  is the complete opposite of boring. I tore through The Hunger Games like I was rabid for my eyes to suck in the words, the meaning, and the story.

The story is violent, harsh and intense. But since I grew up on a diet of Rambo, Rocky, Die Hard and Terminator I managed to make it through easily, as would an average 12-year-old who hasn't been living in seclusion. As much as The Hunger Games is about a dark time in history, the book does not bring a cloud of murky gloom upon the reader. More than that you'll be rooting for the girl, the unlikely and diamond in the rough heroine Katniss. Katniss Everdeen, ever since her father died she has become the provider for her family, she has made it her calling  to hunt enough meat to put food on the table and even uses is to purchase other necessities. Her mom did not immediately wish to survive and out of necessity and hunger Katniss took over to feed her sister and protect her.

The basic concept of The Hunger Games is that somehow for some reason which the narrator does not know, the districts owe the Capitol big time. Each year so as to remind the districts who is really boss, and who owns them there is a contest, a contest in which each district must give up two children, a boy and a girl to fight to the death. There are 12 districts in all and that means 24 contestants or, as they are known in The Hunger Games, tributes. They are selected through a lottery system and then taken to the Capitol to get  all glammed up, marketed and trained to be deadly, all to bring awe and importance to the Capitol. They are then all released into the arena, a glass bubble that goes for miles in which the Capitol controls the weather, and the conditions. They are stalked so that their every motion is on screen.  It is a forced reality show, which each district watches glued to the screen for fear their own will not make it much longer.

Just the plot in itself really gives only a slice of the cake for me. I am a reader who loves characters and people and character development. The plot is great, but to me the character development really made be turn the pages at warp speed. The plot would be good without the depth, the depth would be good without the great plot, together it is a bond that you will not escape dissatisfied. This was my local book club pick this month, and all of us loved it. They were screaming at me with a death wish because the sequel Catching Fire isn't coming out until the fall!

Throw out the Twilight saga, get rid of the sickly  vamps and bring out the real, the tough and the worthwhile YA lit. The Hunger Games will restore what Twilight stole from Young Adult literature, guts. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins will wake you up, and take you to a place in a different time, different and yet so much that we can learn from it, The Hunger Games is an absolute must read! There is no question that this is the most inspiring, the hardest to put down, and the most surprising read for me yet this year! I loved every page and will be reading the sequels when I am able to get my hands on them.

Who else is dying to get the next book in the series? If you aren't it is because you haven't read this one!

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