The Hunger Games

Written by Suzanne Collins and having been made into a blockbuster movie, The Hunger Games is a compelling and wholly fantastic book that poses many questions and opinions about the nature of human politics, general smarts, love, and primal human nature. Written very simply as it’s a book for young adults, I found The Hunger Games to be just marvellous and I absolutely powered my way through it, completing it in intermittent bouts of reading over the course of four days! See, it’s a really compelling book like Harry Potter. 

In the primitive remains of what used to be North America has risen the country of Panem: a country divided into districts and that was once torn by rebellion and war against the Capitol. As punishment for districts’ uprising, the Capitol decreed that every year each district must offer up one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to be taken into the custody of the Capitol and then transferred to a public arena where they will fight to the death until there is only one left standing. This annual, televised event is called The Hunger Games. When sixteen year-old Katniss Everdeen’s little sister Primrose is chosen to compete, she volunteers to take her place. At first Katniss sees the Games as her death sentence, but then again she comes from a very poor district and her skills in archery and as a hunter added to her innate willpower for survival might just be enough to get her through this competition where winning will make you famous and losing means certain death. 

I will admit that I saw the movie before reading the book, however I don’t think that this minor flaw has really influenced by opinion of the book. 

The general concept of The Hunger Games is very dark, it’s very dark, but as the book is written for a budding and adolescent audience, the violence, desperation, and general harshness of the story cannot be really conceived. Looking at it in this way, it reads in a similar way to the Harry Potter series: it’s exciting and rollicking and you can’t put it down, but it’s really hard to imagine the rawness and horror of the violence that takes place. 

The book is written in the first person register, being from the point of view of Katniss, our heroine and a very admirable heroine to come out of 21^st century literature. I have to applaud Collins on her ability to fairly successfully convey the basic inner workings of this character: her stoic sense of detachment, duty, determination, and level-headedness. Using simple language and short sentences as well as questions directed to herself, the first person register worked quite well with this book, causing the reader to identify, if ever so slightly, with whatever emotions spring up during whatever scenarios. 

Really, at the end of the day, my one and only beef with this book is that it’s written too simply for the darkness and brutality of the concept to be appreciated. I still loved it though. 

Filled with action, violence, mild gore, determination, strategy, intellect, politics, love, and comedy, The Hunger Games is a fantastic book, very easy to read, and one that you’ll simply power through. I also love too the fact that it’s simply structured, divided into three parts with each chapter ending on a bit of a cliffhanger. I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT and can’t wait to start the next!