Title: The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Blurber Blabber Review: Buy it now!
Blurb: YA post-apocalyptic world where kids are forced to fight each other to the death in amped up Gladiator-like games with better technology. Need I say more? Oh wait, there's also great writing, well-paced suspense, and endearing characters who show room for growth and development. Collins takes us to some point in the dark future or alternate reality where North America is instead known as Panem with a Capitol and 13 districts. The districts eventually rebelled until the Capitol squashed them and completely destroyed District 13. After the rebellion the Capitol established the Hunger Games, a sick and twisted annual “game” where each of the remaining 12 districts hold “reapings” to randomly select 1 boy and 1 girl (the “tributes”) to fight to the death, televised in a huge outdoor arena, until 1 tribute remains. The Capitol cruelly forces everyone to celebrate the Games as a festivity to add further humiliation and to remind all of the districts how they are totally at the mercy of the Capitol. When you pick up Hunger Games, be sure to do it when you have free time over the next few days because as soon as you finish it you will be on to the next one, and then the one after that, and then you'll be sad that the series is over but glad to not have to wait on a cliffhanger for a year as you wait for the next book (Bah - I'm looking at you Alchemyst series!). If you want to see my reviews for the rest of the trilogy, check out here (book two) and here (book three).
Series: First book in a completed trilogy.
Language/Writing Style: Third person narrative. Mix of dialogue and internal thoughts/memories of the main character, Katniss.
Adult Content: The only adult content in this book is the violence and disturbing imagery from the setting of kids forced to kill each other. Some of the deaths are described in gruesome detail.
Rereadability: This is a fast read and engrossing. And since it's part of a trilogy I went back to it a lot as I was reading the second and third books. I reread this recently wondering if it would be as good as the first time around, and I ended up staying up very late that night trying to finish it.
Published: 2008
Length: 384 pages
(Read on for the more detailed and SPOILER-filled "blabber" review)
I was recommended this book by a friend who described it as an awesome and well-written YA futuristic dystopia where kids are forced to fight to the death in a huge outdoor arena. She had me at YA futuristic dystopia. Luckily I read this around the holidays in 2010 after I’d purchased an e-reader so I was able to promptly download and read the two other books in this trilogy within the next three days. It is that good, and that fast a read.
The main character is Katniss Evergreen (horrible name), a 16 year-old girl who lives in District 12, the coal-mining district (because nothing screams dystopia like coal-covered streets). Like any good heroine, Katniss is smart and resourceful with absentish parents. She was forced to take on the role of the provider at age 11 after her father died and her mom went into a temporary catatonic state. Since her father’s death Katniss has built a sort of emotional wall to others, including her mom. The only ones who pierce that wall are her 12 year-old sister Prim, and her 18 year-old hunting partner and friend (maybe more) Gale. While Katniss’ world is bleak and grim, she’s managed to carve out an interesting and manageable life that readers can take pleasure in reading and imagining, all while remaining in the safety and comfort of lush in comparison homes. Collins has created a survivor character we can live vicariously through and root for, while keeping her from being a total emotional zombie by adding Prim and Gale (and later Rue, Haymitch and Cinna) to the mix.
So all is meh in the world until everything is turned upside down when Prim’s name is called at her first reaping and Katniss desperately volunteers to take Prim’s place at the Hunger Games, alongside the male tribute, Peeta. Because of Katniss’ stunted emotional growth and her preservation instinct, she is wary of everyone’s actions and motives, especially Peeta since she already feels indebted to him and confused by his seeming acts of kindness. Despite never having talked before the reaping, Peeta is intertwined in Katniss’ life as his act of kindness 5 years ago in a moment of desperate starvation was what gave her hope and inspired her idea to start hunting and foraging for food. I think we all sense the love triangle being set up here.
Katniss and Peeta’s journey to the Capital and prep is at the same time fascinating and frustrating as we await the Games. How many times can we read about the weird technology (although I really would love that electrifying hair detangler, blowdryer, glosser) and what people are wearing? I also don’t really enjoy the persona Katniss adopts for the cameras. Yet supposedly this works and people are loving her. I fully credit her surly mentor Haymitch, the only surviving victor from District 12 and a drunkard (wouldn’t you be a raging drunk too if you endured the Hunger Games?), and her stylist Cinna, who mysteriously requested District 12 and will be played by Lenny Kravitz in the movie (I have mixed feelings about that). So Katniss’ twirling (“Twirl for me” - haha!) and bad acting is working somwhat, but it’s only when Peeta confesses his secret crush on Katniss that her popularity skyrockets as who doesn’t love star-crossed lovers? Katniss goes along with the act but I think everyone except Katniss pretty much knows this isn’t too far from the truth for Peeta. Katniss’ life soon becomes a complicated balance of reality and show as she struggles to survive and keep hope while maintaining a facade for the cameras to win the audience over. And sometimes the lines become blurred, especially when it comes to Peeta.As the Games begin, the chapters continue in tense suspense as Katniss battles other tributes, exhaustion, dehydration, and extracurricular activities from the Gamemakers (fire-dodgeball!). We experience the highs and lows with Katniss as she discovers that Peeta has joined the Career Tributes (hard-core tributes who have been training for the Games forever) and become a cold killing machine (Noooo! How could you Peeta?!), and then is surprised when Peeta protects her from one of the Career Tributes as she escapes.
As the Games progress, you try not to get too attached to any of the characters because you know they’re all going to die, but of course Collins includes in the mix Rue, a 12 year-old girl from District 11, who reminds Katniss of her sister Prim, and is very endearing and loveable. As Katniss forms an alliance with Rue, I was glad to see Katniss in a honest relationship, as opposed to her fake preening for the cameras or survivor mode dead eyez. But of course you know that, just like how any famous guest star on Law & Order is the killer/rapist/psycho, any Prim substitute is going to be a goner in a heart-wrenching scene. And boy does Collins do just that. Did anyone else find it odd that the Capitol filled the arena with mocking-jays, a symbol of rebellion? After Rue’s death, Katniss slowly evolves from her original survivor mode, where she once scoffed at Gale’s and Peeta’s deep thoughts about sticking it to the Capitol, and starts thinking of how she can show that the Capitol doesn't own her.
Katniss is in many ways a game changer. Her close ties with Rue draw support and respect from District 11, and later District 11’s other tribute, and her “romance” with Peeta convinces the Gamemakers to change the rules and allow 2 winners if they are from the same district. Yea, Katniss and Peeta can live together forever! Yeah right, come on we’re not falling for that. Katniss immediately sets out to find the injured Peeta and nurses him back to health as she plays up the romance for the cameras. Poor, poor sucker Peeta. He’s so happy to be with Katniss and yet she’s just strategically timing her kisses for airdropped packages of food and medicine from Haymitch. But while Katniss may not be in love with Peeta, she cares for him and risks her life battling the other tributes to obtain the medicine Peeta badly needs to fight off an infection in his leg.
After some gentle prodding by the Gamemakers (drying up their water source), Katniss and Peeta go to fight the last remaining tribute and end the Games. This last fight is an action-packed, tense scene where Katniss and Peeta balance fighting off the other tribute as well as disturbing muttations in the form of huge humanoid wolves with characteristics and eyes of the other dead tributes. They even made a Rue mutt! That’s just wrong.
Katniss and Peeta work together and, after a gruesomely suggestive scene, are the remaining two tributes. I must say that Collins understands the value of flicking at your imagination to get it reved up and conjure the horrible. Oh happy day Katniss and Peeta have won! But of course not. The Gamemakers rain on their parade and announce that they are revoking the early game change and so there can only be one victor. Katniss cleverly comes up with a way to hopefully save their lives and maybe also stick it to the Capitol by having her and Peeta pretend to kill themselves with poisonous berries (very Romeo and Juliet), hoping they will both be spared because the Games need a victor, and having two is better than having none. She is right and the Gamemakers hastily change the rules again and announce Katniss and Peeta as the joint victors.
So you would think that all is good now but of course not. This is just book one of a trilogy. The Capitol and the creepy snake eyes President Snow is now pissed at Katniss for forcing them to let both Katniss and Peeta live. In order to avoid any trouble, Katniss continues to play her role of a simply lovestruck girl who was willing to die rather than kill her one true love. Peeta goes along simply because he really is in love with Katniss. Oh poor poor Peeta. Peeta discovers the truth on the train ride back home and is heartbroken. Just as they are about to step off the train, and continue the act, both now aware of the messed-up situation and mixed up emotions, the book ends. And that’s when you buy the second book immediately. Like NOW. Why are you still reading this review? Go.
Where to find the Hunger Games?
Go to your local book store or library!
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