The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Emily's Comments: Katniss Everdeen is a survivor. She hunts for her own food, haggles with the merchants in the Hob, and protects her mother and sister Prim from starvation. She lives in district 12, the furthest district from the Capitol in a post-apocalyptic North America known as Panem. The Capitol rules with an iron fist, punishing the districts for their rebellion by forcing them to send one boy and one girl to participate in the Hunger Games each year. The Hunger Games is a fight to the death on live TV.

When Prim’s name is called for the Hunger Games, Katniss steps in as a volunteer and is whisked away to the Capitol where she is thrown into an arena with twenty-three other tributes all of which want to kill her. Katniss Everdeen is a surivovr, but can she survive the Hunger Games?

The Hunger Games quickly became one of my favorite reads of the year. It’s a creative, fast-paced thrill ride that is nearly impossible to put down. It’s the movie Running Man and Gladiator rolled into one. If you liked Uglies by Scott Westerfeld or Unwind by Neal Shusterman, you’ll really enjoy this book. I can’t recommend it enough! It is a perfect representation of the high quality YA literature being published today.