Hunger Games: still hungry

I've had numerous students and fellow teachers recommend Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins to me. I finally broke down and read it over my Christmas Break. It only took me a couple of days to finish (which is good for me, because despite being a big reader, I also have difficulty reading the same thing more than an hour at a time). I could see why my students had been begging me to teach the third book in the series, Mockingjay, because many of them had read the first two last year in one of my colleague's classes. So, I bit the bullet.

Hunger Games reminded me of The Uglies (Scott Westerfield) combined with a season of Survivor. The setting is a futuristic North America, that has been broken into 12 districts and a Capitol district.

The protagonist is Katniss Everdeen, who is nicknamed "Catnip" by her good male friend, Gale.
Katniss and Gale are hunting buddies, even though hunting is technically illegal in their district. The government dictates what each district should provide for the nation and Katniss's district, district 12, produces the nation's coal.

After a brief introduction to Katniss, we find out that she is essentially the head of her household because of a mining accident that killed her father and traumatized her mother. Therefore, Katniss has done all that she can- legal and illegal- to provide for her little sister (Prim) and her mother.

Katniss becomes an unlikely hero in that she sacrifices her peace and welfare for Prim by taking Prim's place at the Hunger Games. The means that Katniss will now be fighting for the death against 23 other competitors to gain winnings for not only herself, but for her district.

Of course there must be some love tensions in the story- otherwise the romantic readers would be neglected. Katniss finds herself torn between Gale- who wants to run away from district 12- and Peeta- who is a fellow competitor from her district. Katniss and Peeta are pushed together by the district 12 mentor and the stylists, who try to help the two teens to win the crowd in order to gain sponsors for their survival during the competition. Despite Katniss's disagreements with her mentor, she unintentionally manages to woo the crowd- which results in some powerful help when the going gets rough.

Once actually at the Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta split, because they're supposed to kill one another. Alliances are made among various groups and Katniss keeps her distance from all of the others for as long as possible. While in the Games, Katniss sleeps in trees, gathers food, and even creates problems for challengers with hornets. Never does Katniss kill another competitor in cold blood, but she's definitely adept at self defense and hunting.

The story is unpredictable in all but it's end because alliances and friendships are made and destroyed. The reader can also marvel at the creativity of the author in that she creatively kills competitors off and creates a cruel government the encourages the blood sport. While I enjoyed the read, I was left a little disappointed because it was so obvious that Katniss would win. I'd really like to see the politics of the story be brought out more and I can't help but wonder if the second or third novel will involve Katniss challenging the government. This is a way that I would have liked to see Katniss challenge the government even more than she does, but I guess I'll just have to put book 2 & 3 on my list to see if my opinion improves.