The Hunger Games Trilogy

by Suzanne Collins

Entrails. No hissing. This is the closest we will ever come to love.

goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves.

“Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen.”

He pulls a white paper package from his jacket pocket and holds it out to me. I open it and find cookies. These are a luxury we can never afford.

We spent one Hunger Games watching the players freeze to death at night. You could hardly see them because they were just huddled in balls and had no wood for fires or torches or anything. It was considered very anticlimactic in the Capitol, all those quiet, bloodless deaths. Since then, there’s usually been wood to make fires.

you can never completely deplete a people of it's fuel. deprive them of everything and you are also deprived. the capitol's fuel is contingent upon the fuel they allow the districts.

travel between the districts is forbidden except for officially sanctioned duties.

But this is no ordinary coal train.

the districts are fuel, they are coal, for the empire.

Somehow it all comes back to coal at school.

I throw my spear, which I’m not too bad at actually, if I don’t have to throw too far, and see the little girl from District 11 standing back a bit, watching us.

I wasn’t trying to kill one of them. If I were, they’d be dead!

They say the food is excellent.

Now I smile. “How’s everything with you?” I call down cheerfully. This takes them aback, but I know the crowd will love it.

language and performance; the inescapability of the camera.

Among the familiar evening sounds of the woods, my ears register a low hum. Then I know. It’s a wasp nest.

When I reach the limb that supports the nest, the humming becomes more distinctive. But it’s still oddly subdued if these are tracker jackers. It’s the smoke, I think. It’s sedated them. This was the one defense the rebels found to battle the wasps.

she is so intune with nature.

Even if it means a little extra food for my family, the idea of Peeta being crowned victor is unbearable.

If Cato broke through the trees right now, I wouldn’t flee, I’d shoot. I find I’m actually anticipating the moment with pleasure.

She digs in the pack she carries and pulls out a handful of leaves. I’m almost certain they’re the ones my mother uses. “Where’d you find those?” “Just around. We all carry them when we work in the orchards. They left a lot of nests there,” says Rue. “There are a lot here, too.” “That’s right. You’re District Eleven. Agriculture,” I say.

the history of black people being responsible for american agriculture.

“Trust me. Killing things is much easier than this,” I said. “Although for all I know, I am killing you.” “Can you speed it up a little?” he asks. “No. Shut up and eat your pears,” I say.

My breath makes small white clouds as it hits the air. It’s as cold as a November night at home. One where I’ve slipped into the woods, lantern in hand, to join Gale at some prearranged place where we’ll sit bundled together, sipping herb tea from metal flasks wrapped in quilting,

Hardly anybody knows me better than Hazelle.

girl what

Clove arranging the knives inside her jacket.

“What do you think?” he asks. “I hate them,” I say.

katniss is so unlikable in the books

District Eleven.

not 11??

“And thank you all for the bread.”

District 12.

numeral

And Peeta, if I can get him to come with us.

the real star of the evening is the food.

A mockingjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist.

I wish that Peeta were here to hold me, until I remember I’m not supposed to wish that anymore. I have chosen Gale and the rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol’s design, not mine.

The disbelief of the chronically hungry.

“Why haven’t they helped us?” I say angrily. “If it’s true, why do they leave us to live like this? With the hunger and the killings and the Games?” And suddenly I hate this imaginary underground city of District 13 and those who sit by, watching us die. They’re no better than the Capitol.

The book’s composed of page after page of ink drawings of plants with descriptions of their medical uses.

“I don’t like self-righteous people,” I say.

A cold soup of pureed vegetables. Fish cakes with creamy lime paste. Those little birds filled with orange sauce, with wild rice and watercress. Chocolate custard dotted with cherries.

They put it on a wafer of bread that can be eaten in a second if necessary.

onerous

Lunch makes me feel a bit better. Pheasant with a selection of jewel-colored jellies, and tiny versions of real vegetables swimming in butter, and potatoes mashed with parsley. For dessert we dip chunks of fruit in a pot of melted chocolate, and Cinna has to order a second pot because I start just eating the stuff with a spoon.

“No, I’m an open book,” I whisper back. “Everybody seems to know my secrets before I know them myself.” He smiles. “Unfortunately, I think that’s true.”

Peeta looks up at me, his brow creased in thought. “Her death was the most despicable, wasn’t it?”

“We would all like you to know what a . . . privilege it has been to make you look your best.”

Heavy white silk with a low neckline and tight waist and sleeves that fall from my wrists to the floor. And pearls. Everywhere pearls. Stitched into the dress and in ropes at my throat and forming the crown for the veil.

By the time the anthem plays its final strains, all twenty-four of us stand in one unbroken line in what must be the first public show of unity among the districts since the Dark Days. You can see the realization of this as the screens begin to pop into blackness. It’s too late, though. In the confusion they didn’t cut us off in time. Everyone has seen.

Like everything here, the water’s on the warm side, but this is no time to be picky.

During the Dark Days, the rebels in 13 wrested control from the government forces, trained their nuclear missiles on the Capitol, and then struck a bargain: They would play dead in exchange for being left alone.

indelible

“I’m sorry, Soldier Gale Hawthorne.” “Don’t be, Soldier Katniss Everdeen.”

the oneness of communism vs the individuality of capitalism. solider = comrade ?

Maybe they are militaristic, overly programmed, and somewhat lacking in a sense of humor. They’re here. And willing to take on the Capitol.

reneging

In some ways, District 13 is even more controlling than the Capitol.

“Our plan is to launch an Airtime Assault,” says Plutarch. “To make a series of what we call propos — which is short for ‘propaganda spots’ — featuring you, and broadcast them to the entire population of Panem.”