91. Read and review 100 books (10/100) The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

'Sixteen-year-old Katniss is smart, athletic, and fast. She can take down a rabbit with a bow and arrow, hitting it straight through the eye. Will these skills be enough to survive the Hunger Games?

Suzanne Collins, the author of the middle-grade fantasy series The Underland Chronicles begins anew, exploring a future landscape that will be familiar to devotees of science fiction's dystopic strain. In a nation called Panem, which occupies the landmass that is the present United States, a parasitical fascist Capitol dominates 12 conquered districts. There was a thirteenth district but it was obliterated during a rebellion. The totalitarian government keeps the subjected populations in line by threatened devastation, starvation, and brutality.'


Terrible name (the young protagonists name is Katniss Everdeen), Brilliant novel! Reminded me a little a Margaret Atwood Dystopian future - one where civilisation as we know it has crumbled into ruins and the rich and powerful minority use the poor as 'entertainment' while controlling them by denying even the most basic of human needs - food, water, shelter, love... a land where those in power remain in power by sending a very clear message  - Mess with us and we'll do something worse than kill you... we'll kill your children.


Brilliant plot, perfectly paced and well written and just fantastical enough, I didn't want to put this book down and found myself stealing whatever spare time I could find in my day to keep reading... cant wait to read the next in the series.


On a side note yes I agree, I seem to have a bit of a children's book thing going on here at the moment but I'm guessing it might have something to do with being wiped out in the evenings when I get home from work and just wanting to escape into an easy reading fantasy...