The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

Summary: Katniss Everdeen has grown up in district twelve, a place that has always been controlled by the Capitol. As a way to make sure that they understand this, the Capitol created ‘The Hunger Games’. It is a competition where they take two candidates from each of the twelve different districts and set them loose on each other where the only rule is that the last one standing wins. Everyone from the districts hates the games but they have no choice but to participate. So the question is, if you were picked, how would you survive? What are your strengths that will help you, your weaknesses that will destroy you? These are questions that Katniss herself must find out in this tale of epic proportions.

In all honesty, with all the hype surrounding this trilogy, I wasn’t thinking that I would actually like this book. In my mind, I believed that this book would be just another phase like Twilight where all the teenage girls thought it was the best story known to man when in fact, it just isn’t. But instead, I was happily surprised when, on the first day of reading this book I found I had trouble putting it down. This feeling did not leave me as I continued to flip through the book at an extremely fast pace and as I finished the last page I was left with something that I hadn’t felt in a really long time; an inspiration to read more, to finish the trilogy to the very end.

There is something about the way that Suzanne Collins writes that fully brings the reader into her world. You can picture everything that is going on and you get tense during the high points and feel elated with joy when things start going right. Of course, with how well it’s written, it makes sense that when the main character goes through emotional turmoil, you’re right there with her, feeling her tears, feeling her worries, feeling her world. It is truly a masterpiece in my eyes and it is a book that brought me back to books, one that made me want to read more all over again.

The characters in this story are well-rounded also. Seen through the eyes of first-person, you only ever get their personality through the eyes of Katniss but this doesn’t matter as Collins manages to do it with style and brilliance. Without Katniss being aware of what is happening, the reader is able to understand what is actually going on that she simply isn’t able to see. This may be because of the type of character that Katniss is or it could have been because of the situation that she was in or, and this is more likely, it is simply because Collins is just a brilliant writer. After all, we must give credit where credit’s due, shouldn’t we?

This story is one so full of imagination and inspiration that I simply couldn’t describe it all in a review and simply insist that you pick up the book and read it for yourself. She creates a world so unlike any of our own that it is simply awe-inspiring. Only someone who has spent a lot of time researching and planning could have come up with such a unique story and done it so well. Even when words and animals that you have never heard of before turn up, they are described with such infinite detail that you can just imagine exactly what Collins is writing about.

Of course, with the film adaptation of this novel now in the post-production, one can only imagine just how inspiring this story will be once it is transported to the big screen. If nothing else, I for one am certainly going to be waiting with urgency for this film to make it’s big debut in March.

Faye