The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is a trilogy written by American novelist Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games trilogy takes place in an unspecified future time in the nation of Panem, located in North America. The country consists of a capital city which is very rich and technologically advanced, and twelve poorer districts. Every year, one boy and one girl, aged 12-18, are selected from each district by a lottery to participate in an annual televised death match called "The Hunger Games’. These games are held to entertain the people in the Capitol.

The Hunger Games is the first book in the series. A 16-year-old girl, Katniss Everdeen, from District 12 volunteers for the 74th Hunger Games in place of her younger sister, Primrose Everdeen. Peeta Mellark, an old schoolmate of Katniss, is chosen as District 12’s male tribute. They are both taken to the Capitol for the games by their mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, who was the winner of the 50th Hunger Games. Before the games, the tributes are publicly displayed to the Capitol audience in an interview. During this interview, Peeta reveals his love for Katniss, which she doesn’t believe at first. In a game, when Peeta has a chance to kill Katniss, he instead saves her from the others. As the couple remains the last two surviving tributes, one must kill the other in order to win. However, as they do not want to fight against each other, Katniss gets some highly poisonous berries known as “night lock” from her bag and offers some to Peeta. Realizing that Katniss and Peeta are going to commit suicide, the Gamemakers announce that both participants will be declared champions of the 74th Hunger Games.

The Hunger Games was first published on September 14, 2008 and it has been translated into 26 languages since its release. The book received mostly positive responses from reviewers and authors. It was praised for its plot and character development. The novel won many awards, including the California Young Reader Medal, and was named one of Publisher Weekly’s ‘Best Books of the Year’ in 2008.