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Fiction Friday: The Hunger Games

Yes, okay, technically the other two book reviews I've posted this week were also fiction.  But it's Friday!  How can I not go with alliteration?  It's true I may have a disorder that demands I alliterate over and over again.  We'll call it Iterative Alliteration Disorder.  Anyhoo...

It seems everyone else has read The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, so I figured it was high time I did it.  The fact that the sequel is currently out is a good thing, too, because that way I don’t have to wait for it (but since it’s a trilogy, I suppose there’s no rush).

I’ve described it to curious friends (and my wife, who didn’t ask) as The Running Man, but with kids.  Which is puzzling for a supposedly Young Adult book.  But, there’s no language and no sex, so what are a few spearings and shootings?

It’s not really a criticism, as the book is far from gory.

The setup is quite simple:  Bad stuff has happened in North America, and The Capitol has risen to power and brought order to the once fragile continent.  As long as you’re in The Capitol.  The rest of the country is divided into districts, and the further out you get, the rougher life is.

Add to that the fact that the government holds a lottery of sorts (called The Reaping), in which two adolescents (called tributes) are selected from each of the twelve districts to compete in an outdoor last-man-standing competition (called The Hunger Games).

That’s right:  Twenty-four kids go in, one comes out alive.

Our protagonist, Katniss Everdeen (16 years old) volunteers when her younger sister is selected.  Another boy, who once helped Katniss when her family was starving, is also selected.

So now we have two sympathetic characters and we have to root for one of them to kill the other at some point.  It plays with your head a bit.  In order to root for the protagonist, you have to cheer for her to kill all the others, or at least live on after they all die off.

Because Katniss’s rough life in District Twelve prepares her for the deprivation and brutality of the Games.

How do the Games work?  Do you form alliances, knowing that eventually you’ll have to turn on each other?  Do you become something you really aren’t?  What kind of a government would do this?

(It seems way out there, but it’s not like we’ve never had government-sponsored brutality.)

The book is told from Katniss’s perspective, in the first person.  So we never really know what’s going on in anyone else’s head.  Which would be nice, especially when Peeta (the District Twelve boy) seems to betray his fellow tribute.

I won’t spoil anything about the rest of the plot, except to say that there’s a sequel.  Make of that what you will.

The book is very exciting, and I never got even slightly bored with the narrative.  I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.