Summary:
Katniss Everdeen is a teen responsible for supplying her
family with food. She lives with her
mother and younger sister in District 12 of a dystopia. She is friends with another teen, Gale, who
helps her and hunt and is also responsible for feeding his family. In their
society, one boy and one girls is chosen as tributes each year to fight other
tributes to death in a televised survival match. When Prim, Katniss’ sister is selected as a
tribute, Katniss boldly volunteers to take her place. Her “partner” in the Games is Peeta, the son
of a baker. The two are taken to the
capital to begin the process of preparing for the games. They have stylist to dress them and a
previous competitor to coach them. Peeta
reveals during an interview that he has a huge crush on Katniss. The two separate at the start of the
games. Each finds an ally and goes
through with the battle. When Katniss’
ally, Rue is killed, she is saddened and provides her with a sort of last
rites. A surprise announcement is made
in the arena that two tributes from the same district can survive. Katniss goes looking for Peeta. He is hurts but has used his cake decorating
skills to camouflage himself. Katniss
nurses him back to health and plays up the romance so they can get gifts from
sponsors. When Peeta is better they have to defeat the remaining tribute so
they can go home. They think they have
won until the announcer says that they have reversed the rule for two to
survive. Peeta and Katniss decide to
commit suicide together and of course the decision is quickly reversed before
they can hurt themselves. Katniss eventually learns that Peeta does love
her and Peeta figures out that she was only acting.
APA Reference:
Collins, S. (2012). Hunger
games. Milano: Mondadori.
Impression:
This book was
captivating. I think I read it in one
sitting! I admired Katniss for her
devotion to family and found Peeta sweet and endearing. I thought the premise
of the book was unusual. Dystopian
novels are popular and often very similar.
But the Hunger Games was different.
I would not want my child to read this until about 8th grade
because it is an intense book with some “heavy” ideas. Is it murder if you think you are only going
to survive this way? Is it ever ok to take a life, yours or someone elses?
Professional Review:
Suzanne Collins’s
brilliantly plotted and perfectly paced new novel, “The Hunger Games,” is set
much farther in the future but grapples with many of the same questions.
Collins, the author of “The Underland Chronicles,” a well-regarded fantasy
series, has now written a futuristic novel every bit as good and as
allegorically rich as Scott Westerfeld’s “Uglies” books.
“The Hunger Games”
begins long after the human population has been decimated byclimate
change and the wars that followed. Now North America is the
nation of Panem, a country with 12 fenced-in districts that all work to feed
the enormously wealthy and technologically advanced capital. Sixteen-year-old
Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12, the poorest of them all. Her father died
mining in the Seam years ago, and now her family survives thanks to her
mother’s knowledge of herbal medicine and Katniss’s own illegal hunting and
gathering outside the district’s fence.
The archetype of the
girl survivalist is familiar — she’s tough and resourceful, but kind and
sentimental. We are put on notice that Katniss is something different in
Chapter 1, when she describes a lynx who followed her around while she hunted.
In many books, that lynx would be Katniss’s best friend. But not this one: “I
finally had to kill the lynx because he scared off game. I almost regretted it
because he wasn’t bad company. But I got a decent price for his pelt.”
Long ago in Panem,
there was a District 13. The district revolted, and the Capital demolished it
and killed all its inhabitants. To commemorate the event — and to remind the
districts of its power — the Capital organizes the annual hunger games. First
comes the reaping: one boy and one girl are chosen from each district to attend
the games. Then the games themselves: a fight to the death among 24 teenage
competitors in a sprawling environment controlled by sadistic game masters.The
event is watched by the whole nation on live TV.
The winner — and
there can be only one — returns to his or her home district triumphant and
rich.
When the reaping
comes to District 12, Katniss isn’t chosen — but her little sister is. In a
harrowing moment, Katniss sacrifices herself to the games instead. She’s
certain this is a death sentence — no one from the underfinanced and undernourished
District 12 has won in decades. But as the games begin, Katniss’s intelligence
and accumulated knowledge about edible plants and hunting become an advantage
over the better-fed, stronger kids with wealthy patrons who can send them
medicine or weapons.
As the contest
progresses, Katniss develops a relationship with the boy from her district. But
not even she seems to know whether her feelings are real or faked for the
omnipresent cameras.
The concept of the
book isn’t particularly original — a nearly identical premise is explored in
“Battle Royale,” a wondrously gruesome Japanese novel that has been spun off
into a popular manga series.
Nor is there
anything spectacular about the writing — the words describe the action and
little else. But the considerable strength of the novel comes in Collins’s
convincingly detailed world-building and her memorably complex and fascinating
heroine. In fact, by not calling attention to itself, the text disappears in
the way a good font does: nothing stands between Katniss and the reader,
between Panem and America.
This makes for an
exhilarating narrative and a future we can fear and believe in, but it also
allows us to see the similarities between Katniss’s world and ours. American
luxury, after all, depends on someone else’s poverty. Most people in Panem live
at subsistence levels, working to feed the cavernous hungers of the Capital’s
citizens. Collins sometimes fails to exploit the rich allegorical potential
here in favor of crisp plotting, but it’s hard to fault a novel for being too
engrossing.
Green, J. (2008, November 9). Scary new world. The New
York Times, p. BR30. Retrieved July 20, 2015, from
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/books/review/Green-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Library Use:
In the library this could be used as a genre
introduction. Typically teens enjoy
dystopian novels and this book ( and series) does a great job of presenting a
nice demonstration of dystopia.
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