** spoiler alert ** Anyone picking up this book expecting version of The Hunger Games will be extremely shocked by what they read. Both books are centered around a game that forces young people to kill each other, but, beyond some incidental similarities, these two books are about as different as night and day.

Battle Royale is centered around the students of a junior high school class who are brought to an island to kill each other until only one remains. Over the course of the book, alliances are formed, gangs disintegrate, friendships collapse as the class begins to kill each other in order to survive.

Battle Royale is brutal, bloody, and shocking, but well worth the read. The only real drawback to the story is that is sometimes gets difficult to keep track of all the characters in this book. But the author manages to flesh out almost all the characters so that they are more than just Boy #5, Girl #12, or victim #24. The book itself also explores how well (or rather, how poorly) school class connections can last in such a dire circumstance.