The Hunger Games

Since getting done with a lot of my projects (another post about this coming soon), I've had some extra time to start reading again. Jessica has been bugging me for over a year now to read these books, The Hunger Games. To be honest I've been putting it off. I wasn't sure that we had the same taste in books. She read and LOVED Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. So I read it too. ... It was ok. Don't get me wrong, it was a good book, but I didn't LOVE it like Jess did. So when she kept telling me how good these Hunger Games books were I was little skeptical. I even made her tell me a little synopsis of the books before I would read them.

She told me that it was about a futuristic society, still in America, just a lot of years in the future. The civilians had a rebellion and the government totally took over. The land was divided up into districts and each year the government holds The Hunger Games to kinda keep it's citizens in-line. So the main character is a teenage girl who ends up being one of the two tributes (those are the people who have to play in the games) from her district. The government takes the tributes and throws them into an unknown terrain called the arena with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Then the whole point of the games is, basically, to survive. AKA kill all the other tributes and be the last living person in The Games.

So far I was not impressed. I didn't really get it. But Jess wouldn't let up and when she heard me talking about having free time and needing a good book to read she immediately got me the books! I flipped through the pages and it looked like an easy read. I decided that I would just hurry up and read them so that she would be happy and I could move on to something more interesting.

And "hurry though the books" I did! I was SOOO wrong! I couldn't put the first book down! Bryan started reading it first and flew through the first half of the book in a few hours. I really like reading books with Bryan because we can talk about how stupid a character is or what we think is going to happen. So I knew, by how fast he was reading, that I had to catch up! I started reading it around 9:00 one night after I put Michelle to bed. After that night Bryan and I were in the same place. We read a little more on the way to my parents house that next day, on the 4th, and I was done with the first book by the next afternoon. I'm sure I would have read the whole thing in one sitting if I didn't have Michelle to take care of, or a holiday to celebrate! lol!

I have to give it to Jess, she was totally right about these books. There's really no good way to explain what they're about. No matter how you describe them the actual book will still be better!

I do have to give a word of warning though. I almost put the book away after the second chapter. Not because it was boring or because it wasn't keeping my attention, but I wasn't sure that I could handle the content of the book. The districts all have to participate in these games, and the people who are eligible to participate range from 18 at the oldest, to as young as 12. And it's not a choice. If you're name is called as a tribute you have to go. I wasn't sure that I could handle a book that was going to describe putting a 12 year old into a scary place and having them either kill other kids, or be killed by other kids. So, my advice? Keep reading. It's a sad concept, but the author does a really amazing job at keeping it PG... maybe PG13 in some places. And it helps you get a feel for why people hate their government so much.

Now I'm a little bit (about 1/3 of the way) into the second book, Catching Fire, and it's just as good as the first! If you haven't read these books you really should! They are quick, easy, reads, and tell an awesome story!

OH- I almost forgot! They are making these books into movies! They already have a cast and have started filming. I looked it up on-line and I think they mixed up two characters (just based on looks), but other then that, as long as they stick to the books, it should be really good!

Coming March 2012...

*I'm not sure if this is a real trailer or not, there are a lot of "fan made" trailers out there, but it's the best one I could find. And it looks pretty close to how I would imagine the movie to be.