Hardcover, 374 pages
English language
Published Oct. 12, 2008 by Scholastic Press.
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.
As I suspected, this is a real page-turner. Well executed. On to the next one!
Panem is a world built on the remains of our present, and is divided into twelve districts controlled by the Capitol. Once the districts rebelled against the Capitol but they lost the war. The way found by the Capitol to punish the rebels was to destroy one of the districts and organise "The Hunger Games": every year each district has to send a boy and a girl - the tributes - to an arena to fight to death against the tributes of the other districts. Katniss volunteers to the games to take the place of her younger sister and Peeta, the son of the baker, is randomly chosen to pair up with Katniss as the tributes of District 12. The whole thing is televised as a huge reality TV show and humanity seems completely lost for those who bet on the children and are thrilled by each death.
This has …
Panem is a world built on the remains of our present, and is divided into twelve districts controlled by the Capitol. Once the districts rebelled against the Capitol but they lost the war. The way found by the Capitol to punish the rebels was to destroy one of the districts and organise "The Hunger Games": every year each district has to send a boy and a girl - the tributes - to an arena to fight to death against the tributes of the other districts. Katniss volunteers to the games to take the place of her younger sister and Peeta, the son of the baker, is randomly chosen to pair up with Katniss as the tributes of District 12. The whole thing is televised as a huge reality TV show and humanity seems completely lost for those who bet on the children and are thrilled by each death.
This has to be one of the fastest paced books I have ever read. It is amazingly well written! This book is the first of a trilogy so I knew the end would be a cliffhanger to make me run for the second book ([b:Catching Fire|6148028|Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1268805322s/6148028.jpg|6171458][b:Catching Fire|6148028|Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)|Suzanne Collins|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1268805322s/6148028.jpg|6171458]). It is surprising how I loved Katniss although her main instinct is to survive to get back to sister, even if it means killing everything that moves and compromising her feelings. The easy to love Peeta shows the tenderness that seems to have abandoned everyone else as he doesn't mind losing, which means being killed, if that makes Katniss the winner. Reading the way characters grow while fighting for survival and finding surprising allies is extremely enjoyable. The whole Panem is exceptionally well thought and this book is a pleasure to read, even if the whole idea of children killing each other sounds like a awful premise. A must read.
