A Good Read

For the longest time, when I'd go to the bookstore, I'd shy away from the Young Adult section. I always wanted to go take a look, but for some reason I felt that even looking at the books, let alone buying them, would make me seem like an immature, unsophisticated little girl or some such thing. Kate quite likes this genre of book, so I started reading some of hers. Easy reading? yes. Deep literary works? probably not, but some of the stories are so intriguing. That's the case with this book, "The Hunger Games," by Suzanne Collins. Both my sisters read this book so I finally decided to see what it was all about.

As you can guess, I enjoyed it immensely and thought I'd recommend it to anyone who isn't embarrassed to traverse the Young Adult section at Barnes and Noble. I'm too lazy to write a summary, but I want to include one I read on my friend's blog. You'll be intrigued! Oh, and it's a trilogy. I'm starting the second book tonight.

The former countries of North America have been run down by disease, famine, and war, until they dissolved completely. In their place, the Capitol with 13 surrounding districts took power. For a while all was calm, but then District 13 rose up and tried to rebel. The Capitol crushed them, of course, and peace returned but the Capitol, determined to remind the remaining 12 districts that they are powerless, institutes the annual Hunger Games.

Each year, the names of all the boys and girls ages 12-18 are put into a drawing and one boy and one girl from each district are selected to go fight in the Hunger Games. The 12 girls and 12 boys fight to the death until only one remains. The whole thing is televised and required viewing for all the districts.

Katniss lives in District 12, one of the poorer districts, and she spends much of her time hunting since she is responsible for feeding her family following her father’s death in a coalmine seven years earlier. She has also put her name into the drawing extra times in exchange for extra rations of food (as many in her district do); the number of times your name is entered also increases each year – 1 for the year you are 12, 2 the year you’re 13 and so on, so she knows her chances of getting her name drawn are fairly good. Instead she is stunned when her younger sister, Prim, is chosen instead – after all her name was only in the pool once.

Determined to avoid the fate of watching her sister murdered on television, Katniss volunteers to go in her place. To add to the injury, the boy who is chosen from the district is her same age, Peeta, the son of the baker, who, after her father’s death, risked his mother’s wrath to give her two loaves of bread. She has always liked him and felt in his debt, but now they will be mortal enemies in the Hunger Games arena.