52 in 52 Week 12: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

OK, I have drunk the Kool-Aid, and I now join the ranks of people who are nuts about this book and will be running to the theatre to see it translated to the silver screen.  



Oh my goodness, it just fit in with the "dystopian novel" theme that I have been on since January reading Animal Farm, Brave New World, and Lord of the Flies. Those books are all classics, but I believe this one will be too. 


The author page says that she "continues to explore the effects of war and violence on those coming of age."  


This is meant for young adults, but it is for those older too. 


I first heard about this when having lunch with Laura about a year ago. I saw it in the library, but I had other more important books pressing (like finishing The Well-Educated Mind list), and I forgot about it. 


Earlier this month, we gathered to discuss Animal Farm at our classics book club, and she asked me if I ever read it being that it fell in line with the books I had been reading.  Others in the group overheard and encouraged me; one offering to bring me her copy. Now I was committed. I couldn't fall asleep right away on Friday. So I gave it a try. I was hooked on the first page. I forced myself to go to bed at 12:45 a.m. (and page 45) knowing what I was going to be doing on Saturday. :)


In an age when contemporary fiction is so poorly written, this was just a breath of fresh air! I was afraid it was going to be like Harry Potter or Twilight, and I was assured it was not the same. It isn't. It is far more superior.  


It is a book about what might happen in a futuristic, totalitarian world. I love that it is written in the first person voice of Katniss Everdeen. She is a heroine in every sense of the word. (I love it when women kick it in novels.)


Here is what the publisher writes about the book:

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death – televised for all of Panem to see.
Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

When I entered it on my LibraryThing profile, I noticed it was an "Early Reviewer" book (meaning they give copies for LibraryThing members to read and write reviews), and I never would have looked at the cover and requested to read it. 
So, I am thankful for my persistent friends who wouldn't let me pass this by.


One of those friends just dropped off the rest of the trilogy as I was 18 pages away from finishing up Book 1. I have a feeling I know what I will be doing this Spring Break (if they survive until then).