The Hunger Games-Review
By Luke Falconberry
The Hunger Games is a fascinating story written by Suzanne Collins. It takes place in a post apocalyptic future, in which North America has been completely destroyed. Panem, a nation, stands on the ruins of North America and is composed of twelve different districts. The Capitol rules all twelve districts. The Capitol is cruel; there use to be thirteen districts, but when district thirteen rebelled, the Capitol completely decimated the district. This set an example for all of the other districts as well as starting the Hunger Games. For the Hunger Games to work, each district must send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve to eighteen and they must pit against all of the other contestants, or tributes, in a survival game; The last one standing wins, providing better food and more funding to their district from the Capitol.
That is the background for Collins’ novel. The story’s protagonist is a girl from district twelve, Katniss Everdeen. Katniss has a little sister Prim, who just turned twelve, and a mother. The story explains early on that district twelve is the district in charge of coal mining, and that Katniss’ father died in a mine fire. Since that incident, Mrs. Everdeen, has been in a state shock for several years, and Katniss has taken up the responsibility of raising her family. She makes money by leaving the district and hunting, illegally, for meat. When she started hunting, she made a friend, a slightly older boy named Gale. She and Gale have been friends ever since and they are very close. They usually went to the reaping day together.
Reaping is the day that the Capitol makes the districts choose who will represent them at the annual Hunger Games. The reaping occurs only about a day or two after the story’s introduction. T he book constantly comments on how Katniss doesn’t want to her sister in the games since it is her sisters first year to be in the reaping choices. The day of the reaping comes and who would have guessed, but that Primrose Everdeen, Katniss’ sister, is the girl chosen for the reaping. Katniss immediately yells that she will take Prim’s place as the tribute. They accept Katniss’ volunteer, and draw the name of the boy, Peeta Mellark.
The rest of the story talks bout them getting ready for the game and the actual game itself. It combines a survival, romance, and action story all in one book and Collins does a great job at it.
Collins does a great job in her writing style. The story takes place through Katniss’ eyes, and her thoughts and feelings about the Hunger Games. She can be very descriptive at times and that is great during certain points of the story. Her writing hooked me from the second chapter and I consider that to be a great feat, because it usually takes four to five chapters for me to get hooked on a book. I really thought that this novel had marvelous action moments in it, as well as marvelous romantic moments. The writing is also very realistic and makes you think about if you would act that way when you were fighting 23 others fighting for your life.
Suzanne Collins also did a good job at developing characters that I actually care about. I would get mad when someone was unfair against Katniss or Peeta. Then I would get happy when something good happened. The book even had a moment when I was a bout cry. So I have to say one thing I really liked about the book was the character relations and how they affected the story.
All around The Hunger Games has made it to the top of my favorite list, and I cannot wait for the sequel, Catching Fire. I would not recommend this book for children under the age of 14 because in the end there are some pretty graphic moments. I would highly recommend this book for the ages of 14+.
I give The Hunger Games a 5/5.
Rating: 5/5
- Author: Suzanne Collins
- Publication Date: September 14, 2008
- Publisher: Scholastic Press
- Reading Level: Young Adult
- Recommended level: Teenagers and Adults
- Genre: Adventure, Fantasy
