The Hunger Games

Only a few minutes ago, I finished reading The Hunger Games, the first book of a fairly new trilogy for young adults. I purchased the book because Time Magazine praised the book highly. Some of the commentary should have made me realize I was purchasing a book meant for teens, but it was not until I was almost one-quarter of the way into the action that the intended audience hit me--not because of wording or content, but because the major characters were mostly sixteen years old and younger.



Like Twilight, the first book of the Twilight Saga (the blasted subject of my last post), The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, is a book with a teen girl as the main protagonist. As does Bella in the Twilight Saga, Katniss finds herself in a strange triangle in which she loves one boy but believes she may be in love with another--she is not sure because...well, because she does not know where their strong friendship is going. This is where the similarity between the two books ends.

The Hunger Games is one of the best Science Fiction books for young adults that I have read in a long time. It is the first book of a trilogy, which I have not yet finished reading. In this first book, Katniss faces the challenges of day-to-day survival for herself and her family in a post-apocalyptic country, Panem, within the boundaries of current-day America. The country had been divided into thirteen districts around a central city that was the seat of government. Many years earlier, the districts rose up against the central government, but the Capitol had located itself in the center of the Rocky Mountains and was both well protected from attack and exceedingly well provisioned with raw materials from the districts. During the revolt, one of the districts had been completely annihilated, and the smoldering and uninhabitable land was left as a reminder to the remaining districts that the Capitol was not defeatable and would mercilessly squelch all rebellion.

As one of the strongest reminders of the districts' lowly places in the social order of Panem, an annual lottery is held in each district to select "tributes" to participate in the year's Hunger Games. The names of a boy and a girl between the ages of twelve and seventeen are randomly drawn in each district lottery to participate in the annual games. The same name may be entered multiple times if a young person wishes to earn extra food rations for his or her family. The games, mandatory televised watching throughout Panem, allow a single victor to emerge each year. The victor is the last survivor of the games.

In District 12, the poorest of them all and whose chief industry is coal mining, Katniss waits for the girl's name to be drawn. Her name appears many times in the lottery pool, as she has been the primary provider in her family since her father's death in a mining accident. She knows her chance of selection is good. The draw is made and the name announced: It is not Katniss' name, but that of her younger sister who became eligible for the lottery only this year. Katniss had forbidden Prim to sign up for extra rations; she wanted to minimize her young sister's chances of selection. Knowing Prim has no chance to survive the games, Katniss volunteers to take Prim's place, and the substitution is accepted by the monitors.

The story takes twists and turns, involves politics, greed, and shaky alliances among tributes, and tests the mettle of each participant. Katniss, mentored to form a bond with the boy from her district, finds herself genuinely caring for Peeta, and this complicates her own survival. Two traits dominate Katniss' emergence as a finalist: her illegally-practiced hunting prowess, and her moral fiber.

Half-way through the book, I found myself so involved with the characters that the book went out to dinner with me: I read while my dining partner was ignored. By the final chapters, I was barely aware of my surroundings. Young adult book? This book is for ALL adults, not just the young ones.