"Set in a dark vision of the near future, a terrifying reality TV show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called The Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her younger 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"
I've come to The Hunger Games really late - and only then after seeing the film - and had rather dismissed it as another Twilight-y teen fad so I was somewhat surprised on two fronts - how closely the film followed the book and how good the book is!
Most people probably already know about the great world-building in this dystopian novel - there are a few cracks in it that made me wonder Why should that happen? but take it as a given ( as you might the world from Mad Max) and it's brilliant. The characters are well developed too - no cardboard cut-outs except for some of the minor ones. It's almost impossible to have avoided people discussing Katniss and her role as a kick-ass heroine but she most definitely is - perhaps even more so in the book than the film version. She's not your average heroine but a girl who's had to hunt and kill to put food on the table. The harshness of her life has definitely shaped her and her outlook on life. Fellow games contestant Peta is different altogether - he's had a comparatively cushy life as a baker's son and he's far more emotionally vulnerable than Katniss.
Really all I can say is that all the good things you've heard about this are true. I now need to catch up with the rest of the series.
Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Scholastic
Genre - teen, dystopian
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