by Suzanne Collins
Scholastic. (Ages 12 and up). £7.99. Rating: 5 Stars
THE HUNGER GAMES
The Hunger Games Trilogy Book 1
464 pp.
ISBN 9781407132082
CATCHING FIRE
The Hunger Games Trilogy Book 2
480 pp.
ISBN 9781407132099
MOCKINGJAY
The Hunger Games Trilogy Book 3
464 pp.
ISBN 9781407132105
I got this series as my tenth birthday present. I think this is a very good series and I really like the parts when she is actually in the arena where they have the Hunger Games in both book one and two. Even though it was a brilliant book I could say that Suzanne Collins should take out the boring parts, like when Katniss is in the cave with Peeta, because those parts are not really needed as part of the story. I can understand that to make the book more real you would have to have some grieving and death but I think that the author has gone a bit too far because it is not fun for the reader to be crying for most of each book in the series.
The first book is about a girl called Katniss who volunteered to be in the Hunger Games instead of her twelve year old sister Primrose. The Hunger Games is something that happens on TV every year. It is where a boy and girl from each District, ages twelve to eighteen, are chosen to be put in varying Habitats and are forced to kill each other. The winner is the last person alive. Normally tributes (the children who are chosen to fight to the death) from District Two won, but this time Katniss and Peeta won. (You will have to find out how two tributes won from the book.) Even though one would think Katniss should have been happy about winning she was far from it, because while she was in the arena she made friends with a girl called Rue who was killed.
At the beginning of the second book Katniss and Peeta thought that they and their families were safe from the Hunger Games and could live peacefully for the rest of their lives. However their hopes were soon shattered when President Snow proclaimed that that year the Hunger Games would include all the winners of the Hunger Games from the years before. In this Hunger Games the arena was a jungle shaped like a clock. It was similar to a clock because at each hour, always in the same place, something different happened. This time the Hunger Games was different because Katniss did not have to win. When there were still about six people left, Katniss and a few of the others were illegally taken to the secret District Thirteen. This surprised them because District Thirteen had supposedly been bombed away.
At the beginning of the third book Katniss was so angry that she had not been let into the plans of rebellion and was still supposed to agree to be their Mockingjay ( the symbol of rebellion) that she kind of went crazy. Her anger got even worse when she was informed that she would not join in the fighting and when she saw how President Snow had brain washed Peeta on TV . Eventually her and Johanna (another winner who was in the last hunger games and got taken away towards the end) were allowed to do the training with children younger than themselves and if Katniss and Johanna were good enough (which they were) they would be allowed to fight. I think this was the saddest book because towards the end, while they are fighting, Primrose is burnt up by fire balls. Moreover it was doubly sad because her own side had made and fired the fireballs.
I think ages ten and up should read this book because before that one would think it was boring. This book definitely deserves five out of five stars.
