The Hunger Games

Suzanne Collins

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. But Katniss has been close to death before-and survival, for her, is second nature. The Hunger Games is a searing novel set in a future with unsettling parallels to our present. Welcome to the deadliest reality TV show ever…

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This book is wonderful, I can’t think of any other way to describe it. Katniss Everdeen is a really great character, really well written and with plenty of emotion; she’s tough but caring, just the sort of character I like to see and read about. You don’t see as much of the other characters, so you know less about them, but that’s deliberate because the book is written in first person and everything is seen from Katniss’ perspective, but what you see is written well and nicely descriptive.

The storyline is interesting, despite the rumours that it’s a copy of a Japanese plot, and it flows well enough that you’re through the book before you realise it. The death scenes are varied, and never more graphic or gruesome than is necessary, with what I feel is the right emotion elicited with each one.

It doesn’t happen often, but the moment I finished reading this book I wanted to go back to the beginning and read it again. I think this is as good a compliment as I can give.