The Hunger Games

peeta12 - This is the best trilogy ever look at my name!! I am obsessed with the hunger games trilogy all three of the books went to midnight premire of the movie they had the hunger games in the theater it was so col but i didnt get picked i was in district 4 and the guy from our district won!! I like the first book best because it was the most action packed and the 2 was my 2nd fav because it was SOO interesting and the third i loved but it was not the best i am so team peeta even though in the third one he got hijacked from the capital and pres snow programed him to kill katniss but i dont like gale at all and it was so sad when prim died i can not wait for catching fire to come out in theaters even though we still have to wait a year im going to go to the midnight premere AGAin and i think the guy from beastly the main guy as Finnick i want the mockingjay pin so bad i have a hunger games shirt and socks i need more hunger games stuff i luv the songs taylor swift did for the hunger games album safe and sound and eyes open i LOVE peeta hes so cute and he gave katniss bread i made up a song to sexy and i know it: when i walk in the bakery, this is what i see, katniss everdeen is staring at me, i got a breadstick in my hand and i aint afraid to throw it throw it throw it throw it im peeta and i know it lol there is also a song about cato: i throw my spear up in the air sometimes sayin aaaayo i am cato i wanna celebrate and live my life killing people i am cato lol and i know parts of the valley song: deep in the meadow, under the willow, a bed of grass, a soft green pillow, lay down your head , and close your sleepy eyes, when you open them again, the sun will rise, here its safe here its warm, the daisies will gaurd you from every harm, something something somthsomtheing, here is the place where i love you i luv it but they only sing parts of it i am team peeta and she chose peeta at the end because gale got a fancy job at the nut in 2 i hate the career tributes i know everything there is to know about the books and movie i know what kind of bug spray they used, where they filmed the movie, how long t took them to train for the movie, what the cast's theme song was, what they did when they were not on set anything u could ask and all of the names and last names of the cast and what they were like jennifer lawrence is so funny i know what movies/shows/ music videos the cast was in before the hunger games movie if you have any questions about the movie or book askme :)

Starred review from November 3, 2008
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Reviewed by
Megan Whalen Turner
If there really are only seven original plots in the world, it's odd that “boy meets girl” is always mentioned, and “society goes bad and attacks the good guy” never is. Yet we have Fahrenheit 451
, The Giver
, The House of the Scorpion
—and now, following a long tradition of Brave New Worlds, The Hunger Games
.
Collins hasn't tied her future to a specific date, or weighted it down with too much finger wagging. Rather less 1984
and rather more Death Race 2000
, hers is a gripping story set in a postapocalyptic world where a replacement for the United States demands a tribute from each of its territories: two children to be used as gladiators in a televised fight to the death.
Katniss, from what was once Appalachia, offers to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, but after this ultimate sacrifice, she is entirely focused on survival at any cost. It is her teammate, Peeta, who recognizes the importance of holding on to one's humanity in such inhuman circumstances. It's a credit to Collins's skill at characterization that Katniss, like a new Theseus, is cold, calculating and still likable. She has the attributes to be a winner, where Peeta has the grace to be a good loser.
It's no accident that these games are presented as pop culture. Every generation projects its fear: runaway science, communism, overpopulation, nuclear wars and, now, reality TV. The State of Panem—which needs to keep its tributaries subdued and its citizens complacent—may have created the Games, but mindless television is the real danger, the means by which society pacifies its citizens and punishes those who fail to conform. Will its connection to reality TV, ubiquitous today, date the book? It might, but for now, it makes this the right book at the right time.
What happens if we choose entertainment over humanity? In Collins's world, we'll be obsessed with grooming, we'll talk funny, and all our sentences will end with the same rise as questions. When Katniss is sent to stylists to be made more telegenic before she competes, she stands naked in front of them, strangely unembarrassed. “They're so unlike people that I'm no more self-conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds were pecking around my feet,” she thinks. In order not to hate these creatures who are sending her to her death, she imagines them as pets. It isn't just the contestants who risk the loss of their humanity. It is all who watch.
Katniss struggles to win not only the Games but the inherent contest for audience approval. Because this is the first book in a series, not everything is resolved, and what is left unanswered is the central question. Has she sacrificed too much? We know what she has given up to survive, but not whether the price was too high. Readers will wait eagerly to learn more.
Megan Whalen Turner is the author of the Newbery Honor book
The Thief and its sequels,
The Queen of Attolia and
The King of Attolia. The next book in the series will be published by Greenwillow in 2010.