Hunger Games will leave you craving more
9/9/2009
By Stephanie Tahtinen
Early Thursday evening I was in a local superstore when I wandered into the book section. I don’t normally go into this section because it’s only the latest bestsellers and I’m more of a classics girl, but I was searching for a particular book I had been meaning to read – The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
I started reading it almost immediately when I got home. I had expected it to be a halfway decent story. I didn’t expect to not be able to put it down until I had turned the last page at 1:45 a.m.
The plot is original, twisted, and engrossing. The story unfolds in the future in a place that was once North America. The continent is divided into twelve Districts and one all-powerful Capitol. In order to demonstrate their power and punish the Districts for rebelling in the past, every year the Capitol requires each District to send one boy and one girl to compete in the Hunger Games – a fight-to-the-death competition broadcast on live TV. The only way to survive is to win; the only way to win is to kill everybody else.
This fast-paced, gripping look at the human dichotomy for both violence and compassion follows Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen-year-old girl from District Twelve who volunteers to take her sister’s place in the Games. Katniss’s skills with a bow and arrow quickly make her a favorite in the eyes of the audience – and a target to the other competitors.
Collins causes the reader to enter the arena with Katniss and feel the adrenaline caused by the fight for survival. As you read you are constantly wondering – Who will die next? Who will have killed them? Will Katniss survive the Games? Will she have to kill her friend Peeta – her fellow competitor from District Twelve?
I won’t ruin the ending for you, but I will tell you that by lunchtime the next day I was devouring the sequel Catching Fire, in which the Capitol becomes even crueler in its treatment of the citizens and rumors of rebellion start to spread through the Districts.
I started reading it almost immediately when I got home. I had expected it to be a halfway decent story. I didn’t expect to not be able to put it down until I had turned the last page at 1:45 a.m.
The plot is original, twisted, and engrossing. The story unfolds in the future in a place that was once North America. The continent is divided into twelve Districts and one all-powerful Capitol. In order to demonstrate their power and punish the Districts for rebelling in the past, every year the Capitol requires each District to send one boy and one girl to compete in the Hunger Games – a fight-to-the-death competition broadcast on live TV. The only way to survive is to win; the only way to win is to kill everybody else.
This fast-paced, gripping look at the human dichotomy for both violence and compassion follows Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen-year-old girl from District Twelve who volunteers to take her sister’s place in the Games. Katniss’s skills with a bow and arrow quickly make her a favorite in the eyes of the audience – and a target to the other competitors.
Collins causes the reader to enter the arena with Katniss and feel the adrenaline caused by the fight for survival. As you read you are constantly wondering – Who will die next? Who will have killed them? Will Katniss survive the Games? Will she have to kill her friend Peeta – her fellow competitor from District Twelve?
I won’t ruin the ending for you, but I will tell you that by lunchtime the next day I was devouring the sequel Catching Fire, in which the Capitol becomes even crueler in its treatment of the citizens and rumors of rebellion start to spread through the Districts.