Review: The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

Hunger Games #1

SYNOPSIS: Winning will make you famous.
Losing means certain death.

The nation of Panem, formed from a post-apocalyptic North America, is a country that consists of a wealthy Capitol region surrounded by 12 poorer districts. Early in its history, a rebellion led by a 13th district against the Capitol resulted in its destruction and the creation of an annual televised event known as the Hunger Games. In punishment, and as a reminder of the power and grace of the Capitol, each district must yield one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 through a lottery system to participate in the games. The ‘tributes’ are chosen during the annual Reaping and are forced to fight to the death, leaving only one survivor to claim victory.

When 16-year-old Katniss’s young sister, Prim, is selected as District 12’s female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, are pitted against bigger, stronger representatives, some of whom have trained for this their whole lives. , she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature. – via Goodreads

I understand the concept of it being a book for young adults, but it was pretty decent. I know there are people that are comparing this to Battle Royale, but I never read that, so for me this was new and on it’s own. I did not like the way the love component was written in, it seemed a bit childish and flaky, but at the same time I need to remember that this was a book aimed at a younger generation. I liked it in a sense, but became very frustrated at other times. I was rooting for Peeta and Gale both at the same time, but you can see that Katniss is confused about them, and thinks purely about herself first, she is rather selfish in that sense. Both are good men, but who does she feel for? The story was refreshing, something new, and the books really were very easy to get into and get hooked on. The only thing I had to get used to was the fact that the book was written in the first person and present tense, which for me is very different from my usual stuff, and every now and then it throws you. I did not suffer from that reading it the second time around, because I knew how the writing  style worked. I must say, you can see that it is a book written by a woman and about a woman, there is a lot of fashion and beauty stuff that goes down that the average man is not overly familiar with, but it is bearable and you can overlook it the moment Katniss enters the arena. Suzanne Collins wrote it well that every now and then the full force of the injustice of murdering children for sport and punishment smacks you squarely, and again I was reminded about how terrible people can be to one another. A pretty decent read, I must admit.

SPOILER: I wish that Katniss would have been honest with Peeta on the train on the way home and told him how she felt, the last few paragraphs on the train that Collins wrote about. I really think that that would have changed the dynamic between them completely, made things more bearable. Again, her selfishness wins out, however, and Peeta is left to flounder about what happened with them in the arena. If he knew where he stood with her, everything would have been so different.