The Hunger Games By Suzanne Collins
Scholastic Press, 2008
Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction
From the Back of the Book:
In the Ruins of a place once known as North American lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before- and survival, for her, is second nature. Without meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
My Thoughts:
I had heard so many wonderful things about The Hunger Games from various sources that I had been really excited about reading it. And The Hunger Games did not disappoint! Collins drops the reader right into a fantastic possible dystopian future setting. I felt that her portrayal of human nature and the extension of the modern tendency towards reality television into a deadly future game scenario was something that could plausibly happen. I thought that Katniss was portrayed as a very real person. and that she was very easy to connect to and care about. I didn't always like the way she thought or acted but it was still very real. The story continued to build momentum and the momentum carried me through the entire novel in one sitting. When I was finished, it was terribly disappointing that I didn't already own the next book.
I highly recommend reading The Hunger Games. It may be a young adult novel but it definitely contains some very difficult themes that make it fully worth reading as an adult.
Written as part of the Speculative Fiction Challenge.
I also really enjoyed the Hunger Games. I read the trilogy last fall - though I thought the other two offered diminishing returns after the awesome of the first... Sounds like you are off to a good start with the Spec Fic Challenge!
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