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 Breathtaking! I was unable to put this book down! Nov 22, 2009
I just finished Hunger games minutes ago and I feel like I have just been let in to a secret club. Seriously. I have read reviews on Hunger Games for months now and wondering what all the hype was. I entered a few contests to win it, and did not. I did however win a copy of Catching Fire and I knew I had to read Hunger Games first so I bought it last weekend and started it yesterday.
This is a book that by cover alone I would never have picked up. The title? Nope. Reading what it was about? Still a no, I couldn't imagine myself reading on a topic of young kids fighting to the death. Even after I picked the book up and opened up to the first page I still am having doubt. What if I am that one person that just cant get into this book? And then I started reading.... and in no time, I loves Katniss and her strength and her love for her family. I love Prim in all her youthfulness and sweetness... still mostly untouched by all the harshness of all this world that I have just entered. I could hardly put it down. You know the type. The book that you can hardly stop to eat dinner for. It traveled with me everywhere the past 48 hours. In any spare moments I had, I read.
I don't know what I can say other than I loved this book! It is so well written that I have a list of people who I feel must read it. I have to tell my book club about it. I am not sure who to pass this book on to next because the selfish book lover in me is thinking, what if they damage it? What if I dont get it back? I seriously am treating this book like a piece of gold I just discovered.... a book of much worth.
What am I reading next? As I type, I have Catching Fire sitting next to me. It has to be next. I have to know what happens next.
 In the tradition of Brave New World Nov 21, 2009
Hunger Games is one of the rare books you read and can't help but love, whether you are an adult or child. It is largely the story of 16-year-old Katniss who lives in a totalitarian state where the people are kept in check by threatened devastation, starvation, and brutality. In lesser hands it could come off as bleak and tired, but Collins is able to keep the dark themes from getting too dark while moving the story along nicely.
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Hard to put down Nov 20, 2009
Great read. It was hard to put down after the first few pages. The writing style and creativity was amazing.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
THE HUNGER GAMES BY SUZANNE COLLINS Nov 18, 2009
From the author of the bestselling Underland Chronicles come the first in a brilliant new series that will change how you view your everyday life in more ways than you can count. Collins has taken a science fiction archetype - a doomed future world where everyone gets by, barely - with a certain cast of characters that sets off the readers emotions to unknown bounds.
North America. The future. Now known as Panem, it is a changed world, the country divided into districts, each district with its own industrial focus - minding, farming, manufacturing. For the most part, many in the districts struggle to get by, struggle to survive. Our main character, Katniss Everdeen, is a sixteen-year-old girl who has spent her life helping her family - her mother and younger sister - hunting for food and scraps, fighting to keep them all alive. She is a teen beyond her years.
The annual event of the Hunger Games arrives: a stark reminder of how worse things could really be if the Capitol didn't control the districts. A boy and a girl - between twelve and eighteen - are selected from each district and forced to participate in the Games. Katniss's younger sister gets picked, and Katniss does what she's always done: steps in front, volunteering in her sister's place, saving her life. Then she is off to the Hunger Games.
In the style of The Running Man, it is a nationally televised event, akin to the gladiatorial games of Rome, with much pomp and circumstance. Twenty-four kids find themselves put into the "ring" - an unknown terrain that may or may not be habitable - and with the sound of a gong and the start of the games, they must fight each other to the death until one last child remains standing. The children find themselves under constant pressure, to survive in the environs, to defend themselves against each other, and if the viewers get bored, creatures may be released to keep them on their toes.
The Hunger Games is one of those books that could be shelved in the young adult section for its use of teen characters, or the science fiction section for its powerful storytelling of a future world with some undeniable and harsh similarities to our own, or the fiction section for is strong characters who deal with very human emotions while fighting each other to survive. This is strongest in Katniss, who knows how to hunt and fight for herself, but knows little of love and caring for those other than her family, and yet in the Hunger Games sometimes you must make allies to survive, at a cost, for eventually you will have to kill your ally.
The Hunger Games will have you on the edge of your seat, flipping the pages, but also wanting to read slowly and savor the incredible story, and at the end you'll be somewhat annoyed by the abrupt ending. Have no fear, the sequel, Catching Fire, will be out September 1st, while Collins continues work on the third book in the series.
[...]
Similar to BATTLE ROYALE, but definitely its own unique vision Nov 18, 2009
A really entertaining and exciting teen read that's far edgier than I expected. Any number of people have already made the connection to Battle Royale, but reading The Hunger Games not two days after watching the film again made the connection seem very obvious. After all, both are about a government attempting to keep its population in line via a brutal competition; both feature teenagers and young children battling to the death; both feature shocking displays of violence from said young people. But for all the hoopla and complaints, the tone, execution, and themes of the two pieces couldn't be more different. The Hunger Games plays the competition far more seriously than Royale, eschewing the latter's social satire in favor of focusing on the effect of this warfare on those who participate. Beyond that, Hunger Games touches on the psychological warfare of government, the power of media, and even the effectiveness of propaganda. To be sure, there's a couple of teen-bait plot threads involving romance, but they don't reduce from the overall greatness of the book. Hunger Games is surprisingly unflinching and creates a fascinating world I'm very curious about, and sets up enough interesting plot threads to leave me very ready to check out book two of the series.
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