BOOK REVIEW: The Hunger Games

Awhile back, I spent time cheating on the NE Florida Nest board and wandered over to the Nest Book Club board. (FYI: it turns out I'm a one-board kind of girl.) While there, I heard a ton about a series called The Hunger Games. I didn't give it much thought until I was in Barnes and Noble with my mother and saw it sitting, quite unassuming, on the Young Adult shelf. To pass the time, I pulled it off the shelf and skimmed the back cover.



I like to think that I was hooked from there.

Here's what the goodreads description says:

"In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place."

I don't know what has happened to the young adult genre since I was a young adult, but whatever it is, I LIKE IT. Susanna Collins pulls no punches. This book is ruthless and bloody and real while at the same time managing to pull every heartstring you possess, but in a non-sappy way. I haven't been so incredibly engrossed in a book since the last time I read Harry Potter. I can't say that last part too loud though. It sounds like sacrilege. As the book ended, I was suddenly grateful to one of my sweet librarians who, upon checking this book out to me said "I'm going to go ahead and just reserve you the second book. You're going to want it." How very right she was.

Hunger Games kept my attention for all of four hours, which was the amount of time it took me to read from start to finish. I'm not bragging about my reading ability. I am, admittedly, a quick reader, but Hunger Games flew by for me because it was so quick to pull me in and engage me in a highly imaginative storyline. The villain is a society that one can truly bring itself to hate, while still finding sympathy for those who have been fooled and twisted by its lies.

Lovely.

PS: I just finished the fourth Odd Thomas Book. If Dean Koontz doesn't put out the fifth one soon, I'm going to march myself out to California and stage a sit-in.