The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

Scholastic, Copyright 2008, 454 pages

ISBN: 978-1-407109-08-4

Read March 2013, at age 34

Part one of a trilogy, it stands on its own fairly well.  Dystopian science fiction.

From the back cover:

Winning will make you famous.  Losing means certain death.

In a dark vision of the near future, twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live TV show called the Hunger Games.  There is only one rule: kill or be killed.

When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her sister’s place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence.  But Katniss has been close to death before.  For her, survival is second nature.

Reactions (and spoilers, as ever) after the break:

Overall:

This was a good read.  It was surprisingly (to me, for a mass market book) well written, unafraid to go to dark places, and full of action.  It took me all of two hours to read, and was thought-provoking long beyond that.

I noticed particularly that the author did very well at having the character notice the things that were important to her – food, etc.  while glossing over less important things.

It took a while to get used to the narration – first person present tense – but once I did, it was fantastic for communicating immediacy and tension.

My major complaint in the book – it’s set Panem, a post-calamity dystopic North America.  Which is good.  Politically, it’s divided into 12 districts, ruled over by the Capitol.  Shades of Rome and the provinces, really.  People all work in the districts, and they just rule in the Capitol.  So far so good.  But here’s the thing.  North America, even with the sea levels having risen, is BIG.  Each district should be BIG, too.  Not small-town-feel monocultures.  Also, a small town, mining coal with picks and shovels, won’t be enough to provide for the whole continent, but that’s how it seems to go.

Ignore that, though, and it’s a good story with a wonderful heroine (competent, and tough, but not unreasonably so, and not cocky).  The plot goes mostly as expected, but not overly much so.

Rating:  4

Other reviews:

Russ Albery

Fantastic review.