A Review of the Hunger Games

Tu Nguyen

Carla Chwat

English 1101

26 September 2016

A Review of The Hunger Games

The novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins had me interested in many things. The Hunger Games takes place in the post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in North America. It deals with a sixteen-year-old girl named Katniss Everdeen volunteering to take the place of her 12-year-old sister, Prim, in The Hunger Games. The Games is a televised event in which a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18, from twelve districts of Panem, are put into an arena and are forced to fight until their death, until there is one remaining victor. Katniss is one who goes through many obstacles and faces things that she never thought she would have to deal with. At the end, she falls in love with a boy named Peeta Mellark. The Hunger Games is a great story about fighting for one’s beliefs with a hint of romance and action. It gives the Fantasy Fiction/Sci-Fi genre a whole different aspect because the storyline is intriguing, shows good character development, and is unique. However, since there are not many books based on dystopias, it makes the book more interesting to read, and these further paragraphs will discuss what sets The Hunger Games apart from other novels.

One of the standards to having a good story is having a great storyline. Nobody wants to read a story which does not have an engaging plot. The plot of The Hunger Games is very well-designed, and some very dramatic parts are scattered about within it. It is also so new and different from any other novel.  It makes this novel that much more interesting to read. It has a very good conflict between person versus person in how the tributes fight to the death, even if they are neighbors. The climax and resolution in this novel is very emotional, exciting, and makes the novel easy to read, especially for teenagers who are twelve and up. It also teaches a valuable life lesson that “there is nothing wrong with getting a little bit of help.”  For some reason, people think that asking for help is a sign of weakness, but sometimes, it is necessary to ask for help. A great storyline, such as the one in The Hunger Games, keeps readers wanting to read from chapter to chapter. This is the most important standard that defines a great novel because it keeps the audience engaged.

Apart from a great storyline, a focus on character development is also essential. The two main characters truly make readers feel as if everything is real and they are in another world. First, let’s talk about the main character and narrator of the story. Katniss is a girl who plays with bows and arrows, and does not like to talk about love and boys. She is more masculine than feminine as seen in the first chapter of the novel when she is about to go hunting and she states, “I pull on trousers, a shirt, tuck my long dark braid up into a cap, and grab my forage bag” (Collins 4). These actions highlight her simplicity as well as the fact that she does not care about her appearance. She is not a completely likeable character. She is sometimes self-centered and occasionally acts without thinking. What makes the readers love her is that she will do anything to make sure her sister, Prim, lives a safe life. She has to hunt in the woods in order for her and her sister to survive. She also volunteers to go to the games of death to replace her sister. She loves her sister more than anything else, and that is what makes the readers love and forgive her.

There is another character that Katniss is tempted to love.  His name is Peeta Mellark, and he is the second main character. Peeta is a wonderful, honest, hardworking, kind male, and he has been in with love with Katniss since the first time he met her. His family is wealthier than some of the other families because they own a shop.  He is more feminine than masculine compared to Katniss because he is more sensitive than she is. His ultimate goal is to keep Katniss alive throughout the numerous stages of The Games. This is initially evident because he throws Katniss some bread in the beginning of the novel as an act of kindness. He cares for her more than he cares for himself. Katniss also cares for Peeta as she declares, “I don’t want to lose the boy with the bread” (Collins 374).  The bond that these two dynamic characters establish is extremely powerful in their character development as they transition from strangers to close friends. This is something that readers can relate to since they know someone that they cannot imagine their lives without.