The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) in Crazy Challenge Connection

Jan 27, 2017 Chelsey rated it really liked it

Shelves: 4-star-books, worth-the-hype, read-in-2017

Spoiler free review

4.5 stars rounded down because I reserve 5’s for the best of the best of the best.

Okay, I am about 9 years late to the party and I am kicking myself. I wish I had read these sooner. Luckily, the only spoiler I knew of dealt with Rue. So, I was completely blank to everything else that was going to happen.

I’m not even sure how to start. I loved Katniss. Her love for her sister is something I can relate to on such a deep level. I loved her strength, determination, and intelli Spoiler free review

4.5 stars rounded down because I reserve 5’s for the best of the best of the best.

Okay, I am about 9 years late to the party and I am kicking myself. I wish I had read these sooner. Luckily, the only spoiler I knew of dealt with Rue. So, I was completely blank to everything else that was going to happen.

I’m not even sure how to start. I loved Katniss. Her love for her sister is something I can relate to on such a deep level. I loved her strength, determination, and intelligence. I loved that she was a flawed character. It made her feel so real and relatable. I liked Peeta quite a bit, though I found some of his motives a bit hard to believe. Rue, oh my god, don’t get me started. The scenes with her were heartbreaking. I kept imagining my younger sisters being put in a situation like this. I saw Rue as a version of my sister and it was all I could do not to cry any time a scene with her happened. She was so pure and so sweet. She was the perfect way to further illustrate the brutality and unfairness of the hunger games. Rue is and always will be my favorite character.

There were some amazingly memorable scenes in this book; the subtle digs at the capital with the berries and flowers, the final death in the games, and of course the scene where Katniss volunteers as tribute. The plot was great. The world building was phenomenal. Learning about the state of despair and poverty that district 12 constantly lived in fueled my hatred for the capital and reading the events of the hunger games unfold made me despise the capital. I think the best part of this book was how plausible the whole thing seems. Maybe I’m just easy to impress, but I don’t think something like this is too terribly dystopian. I feel like the hunger games is almost a metaphor for how the upper class, the 1% so to speak, prospers and takes no notice of the suffering of the poor except when it benefits or amuses them, or gives them something to control. Maybe that is just me, but I felt a strange, chilling real world connection in this book that I never could shake. I could also chalk it up to the recent USA election.

I digress.

I think this book is amazing. I had to get the next two books immediately. I could not put this book down and I read it so quickly I even surprised myself. I would recommend this trilogy to anyone who hasn’t read it and loves YA dystopian. Of course, I feel like I’m the only person on that planet who hasn’t read these. Even though I hate the last book, this series is definitely worth a read and I think anyone would enjoy these.

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Apr 15, 2018 Karen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: j-ya, audiobook, birth-of-a-reader

Wow. What a pleasant surprise this was. I'm not sure why, but The Hunger Games has never interested me. I listened to Veronica Roth's Divergent eons ago now and figured I'd done that genre - time to move on. Recently I was faced with a challenge which requires an "Adventure" tag and somehow, I unwillingly landed on the audio version of The Hunger Games. Wow.

I can't imagine what I can add to the 158,500 reviews already posted about this book. The audio version read by Carolyn McCormick was great ...more

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Apr 25, 2014 Tina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: series, home

I can see why they decided to turn this book into a movie:)

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Jan 25, 2014 Janet rated it it was amazing

I read this book for a literature class. I found it to be much more than I had expected. There is so much symbolism and truth in this book. Katniss’s relationship with Gale is one that was based on true friendship. Katniss was not a trusting person, and it took a while before she felt she could trust Gale. Once this trust was established, she was able to be herself around him, and believed they worked better as a team. When she was in the forest with Gale, she smiled, and this was not something ...more

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Jun 05, 2014 Reader Rick rated it really liked it

Great little story. This is a cautionary tale about what can happen when as totalitarian government is allowed to take control of peoples lives to the point where in the name of punishment and entertainment in true reality TV style two teens from every district are forced to take part in a fight to the death game where only one person can win.
What happens when one team from district 12 fall in love and the audience want them both to survive? What is the aftermath when at the very end they both ...more

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