The Hunger Games

Written by Suzanne Collins

Reviewed by Jorge O., BCCHS student

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is the first book in a trilogy. The book takes place in a futuristic modern world, but no time is given. Here a nation called Panem lies in the ruins of what used to be North America. This nation is divided into 12 districts. The higher the number of the district, the poorer the district is. The main character of the story is a girl named Katniss. She lives in the poorest district, District 12. She lives with her mother and younger sister, Prim. They have to hunt for their own food and struggle to survive because their mother is in a deep depression and Katniss has to take care of her younger sister alone. But Katniss has found herself in a nightmare predicament. Katniss’ little sister, Prim, was chosen to fight in the hunger games, which are held every year. Katniss wouldn’t let Prim enter so she volunteered to take her spot. They had to prepare for the games for weeks which I thought was a bit of a slow start for the book.

One of the reasons that I chose this book is because of the description that the librarian told me. The librarian told a short summary of the book so we know what it’s about and that got me very interested in the book. One other thing that got me interested in the book was the cover. The cover looked like it could be an action book, and the mocking jay pin on the cover looked like it was a symbol for something that the character would have as a prized possession and it looked really interesting.

This was a really great book overall. I thought that the combination of the setting and the plot of the story just went together perfectly. There are some exceptions to the book though. At the beginning, Katniss was just with a friend hunting and talking about the memories of her father. I thought that this beginning was kind of slow. However, as the book progressed there started to be more and more action in the book which kept pulling me back to read it some more. This was a great part of the book that the author did to keep making the reader wonder what is going to happen next, which I loved.

Overall I thought this was an excellent book. The author tied the thoughts of a teenager and the story really well. I would give this book 4.5 out of 5 because it was an excellent book and I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.