The Hunger Games

“The Hunger Games”

The “Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins  is a book about a controlled society that is run by the Capital. In a way, it is very similar to a program that my friends attended called Boys State, because all they did was follow orders and they didn't appreciate that too much.

The main character, Katniss Everdeen, supports her family by hunting out in the woods ever since her father died in a mine explosion. The actual games is a competition between all of the 12 districts. Every year, two people (a boy and a girl from ages 12 to 18) are selected from the districts to be placed in this government hosted killing fest. They are selected by chance out of a bowl at random. Each district brings its own competition with its wide variety of skills and talents. The Hunger Games itself changes every year to avoid any pre-knowledge of the skills that the tributes would need. The point of these games is for the Capital to prove that they have authority and that they aren’t to be tampered with. During the reaping Katniss volunteered for her little sister Prim because she doesn't want anyone in her family to get hurt. When Katniss went to the Hunger Games with Peeta Mellark, another boy who she knew as a kid in school, they did the exact opposite of following the rules. Katniss and Peeta played the game that you would play with your teacher in elementary or middle school where you do something that looks or seems bad, but is just for the purpose of making the teacher yell or get angry. They acted like they were in it together to win it, when they should be against each other. This included public displays of affection such as hand holding, saying that they love each other and at the end trying to die for each other. At the end of the games, when it was just the two of them together, they decided that they would rather both kill themselves rather than one of them dying and the Capital getting what they wanted.

This book is similar in many ways to the book “Matched”, in that they are both a utopian society and also both main characters are teenage female rebels.They both have a totalitarian government where all control is given to the leaders.  This book is also related to the book “Maze Runner”, because they were stuck also in a place they didn’t want to be and the only way out was the maze, which changed everyday.

If for some reason Katniss spontaneously turned into a geometric shape, I feel like she would not be a circle, square, triangle, or something normal like that, I think she would be an irregular object. I feel Katniss would be half square and half circle because on one side she is the most responsible squared off person in her whole family, but on the other she is a crazy savage animal. When her father died and her mom went into a deep state of depression, Katniss supported the family and went out into the woods and hunted to bring back game for them to eat. She also helped out her mom and got her back to a state of almost mental health. On the contrary, she should be a circle because during the Hunger Games, there were no rules (edges), and she was not messing around (corners). If she felt like she needed to kill for her safety, she did. If she felt like she needed to make a real quick bed and sleeping environment out of the top of a tree, she did. Katniss did what she needed to do to get home safely to continue to support her family.

If there were only three scenes to be put into a movie from this book I would say the three scenes would have to be at home in the beginning when she is being chosen for the games, when she gets to the games and is fighting for her life and wins with Peeta, and the ending where Peeta and Katniss survive and a little clip of how unhappy their leader, President Snow, is. I think these three scenes are the most important because these are what the main idea of the story are. Without the first scene you wouldn't know what the Games are or why the people that are in them, are in them. Without the second scene you wouldn't know what happened with the people introduced in the first scene but you know for some reason they won and that they are for some reason not liked by the President. And without the third scene you wouldn’t know the resolve that happened after scenes 1 and 2, which would leave a complicated awkwardness to fix in the plot of the story.

Over all I think “The Hunger Games” was a great book. People from the tweens up should read this at least once, because it shows us what life could possibly be like if we elect the wrong type of government, and how good we have it now.