The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Everyone was talking about this book, so I guess I had to break down and read it eventually.

For those of you who have missed the hype, The Hunger Games (and the rest of the trilogy, the final installment of which just came out and has been popping up all over my Facebook newsfeed) are about the biggest thing in YA lit since (sorry male Hunger Games fans) Twilight. The Hunger Games takes place in a dystopian North American civilization some unspecified time in the future. As punishment for a past uprising, the ruling city forces its twelve outlying districts to send two teenagers each year, chosen by lottery, to compete in an elaborately constructed fight to the death, which is then broadcast to the districts who are forced to watch. Katniss, the narrator, volunteers herself to take the place of her younger sister, and the story follows Katniss through to her victory (I didn't give anything away - you know from the beginning that she's going to come out alive).

My reaction?

First, it was definitely the engaging, easy read that I needed to counterbalance Heart of Darkness and Bleak House (commensurate with the page count, that review is going to be a long time coming...). It didn't lose my interest, even though people wandering around in the wilderness has never really been my thing. It helped that the wandering-in-the-wilderness was embedded in, constructed by, and overshadowed by* civilization.

Second, it was definitely a YA dystopia novel, which means that if you like that sort of thing you'll probably like this book, and if you don't, you probably won't. These days I bounce back and forth between like and indifference, but I thought this particular book was well-constructed and interesting, and that the characters were well fleshed out.

But third, while I enjoyed the read, there was something that rubbed me wrong throughout the whole book about the premise of children being forced to fight to kill. I knew about this premise ahead of time, and I have to admit that I found it less gruesome and gritty and more thoughtfully treated than I expected. It's neither overly dark nor unnecessarily violent, and all of the characters (all of them) received sympathetic treatment. I liked that. But the premise still made me uneasy, and in retrospect I think it's because it should have felt more horrible than it did.

Will I read the rest of the trilogy? Probably. Eventually. They're quick reads, and I'm interested enough to find out where it goes (though I've heard mixed reviews about Mockingjay). Would I recommend the book? Yes, but only if YA fiction is up your alley. If it is, it's worth reading, at the very least to find out what everyone's talking about.


* It sounds so awkward to use the same preposition twice, but "overshadowed over" sounded at least ten times more awkward.