Book: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Pages: 374 (Paperback)

What Did I Think? I loved it!  I’ve heard of The Hunger Games, and a few weeks ago, request it from the library.

In The Hunger Games, the Capitol is very harsh to the country of Panem, which occupies the area that used to be North America.  The Capitol is surrounded by 12 districts, which are kept in line by forcing all 12 districts to send one boy and one girl to fight in the annual Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games takes a total of 24 tributes, all between the ages of 12 and 18, in a fight-to-the-death event televised on live T.V.

We follow Katniss, one of the tributes from District 12, which is the poorest district.  She volunteers to be her district’s female tribute when her 12 year-old sister is picked to be one of the tributes.  The book is divided into 3 sections- the first is about the tributes, the second is about the actual hunger games, and the third is a mix of the hunger games and the post-games stuff.  There is violence, since everyone’s fighting to the death, but I wasn’t bothered by it.  And I thought it was secondary to the rest of the story, which is more about the government keeping the districts in line and squashing any sort of rebellion.

I was utterly fascinated with the idea of The Hunger Games, and how bad things can get.  I especially loved the way it was written- I felt like I was experiencing what Katniss was experiencing, and how chaotic the Hunger Games really are.  I don’t know how to describe what I felt when I was reading the book.  I guess it’s a mix of horror, amazement, and a general feeling of wanting Katniss to make it through.  The idea of a bunch of kids fighting to the death on live tv is morbid…but it’s a fascinating morbid.  Or maybe I’m just really weird and disturbed.  Moving on…I can definitely see why it’s so popular!

You can see the difference between the districts: some are more wealthy than others, as evidenced by the fact the a few of the districts have people who train for the Hunger Games.  It’s those districts that tend to win the Hunger Games.  And even in District 12, we can see the socioeconomic differences between the Seam (the poor section of an already poorer district) and the other part of town.  There’s just so much going on that we don’t see, and I’d like to re-read through a sociological perspective.  Look at me trying to be all smart!  But really, my degree is in sociology, and so it was kinda hard for me to miss.  Actually, it’d be hard for a lot of people to miss, I think, but there was all kinds of issues and stuff in there that I’d like to take a look at.

I wanted to know more about the districts, since not much information was given about each district or about the rebellion.  I wanted to know how and why North America was destroyed and why the Treaty of Treason was necessary.  I’m not sure how this would work out in the book, and for all I know, it could be revealed in the other 2 books.  But then again, the book was more about survival and what’s it’s like to go through the Hunger Games than about the history and how they got there.  There weren’t really any reasons given for why things were the way they were, but I’m (oddly) okay with that.  It does make you wonder what happened in order for something like The Hunger Games to come about.

Rating: 5 out of 5.  I thought it was amazing, and I was only a few chapters in when I requested the 2nd book.  It’ll be a while before I get it- I’m currently at 165 out of 182…which is better than the wait list for Game Of Thrones, where I’m at 223 (out of 226 people).