The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Summary:
In a post-apocalyptic future, there is a Country called Panem.  Panem is located in North America and consists of a Capitol and 12 surrounding districts.  District 12, where we meet our heroine, is located in the Appalachia region of North America.  Panem is gearing up for the annual Hunger Games where one boy and one girl, between the ages of 12 and 18, are selected from each district, though not from the Capitol, to participate.  It is an annual competition designed to remind the surrounding districts of the power the Capitol holds over them.  Devised after a rebellion 74 years ago, which resulted in the complete destruction of District 13, the Hunger Games require the participants to fight to the death.  If you are able to survive, you will be given a monthly salary, a new house in your district, and you will be safe from being chosen again.

This is when we meet Katniss Everdeen.  At age 16, she has been providing for her family since her father's untimely death in a coal mine explosion five years ago.  Hunting with her best friend, Gale, who lost his father in the same explosion, she is able to keep her 12 year old sister and mother alive.  Katniss volunteers to go to the Hunger Games after her sister, Prim, is selected as the female competitor for District 12.  She is then whisked away to the Capitol with her fellow contestant, Peeta Mellark.  Strategies for survival are devised and Peeta makes a very exciting, very public, revelation.

Thankfully, Katniss has many hidden talents and one very well developed skill to give her a fighting chance in the competition.  Though when it's over, is it really over?

Response (Beware of Spoilers):

I have to say that I am currently upset with Miss Katniss Everdeen.  I've come to the end of the book and she seems entirely confused by her emotions towards one Peeta Mellark.  There is this Gale character from back home with whom she seems to have some sort of potential romantic tension, but as a reader I only know what she tells me about him.  As a reader I have been shown the lengths that Peeta is willing to go to in order to protect her and to show her how he feels.  I have been shown how his feelings for her are obvious to everyone but her and I sort of want to shake her and tell her to get over whatever it is that's causing her emotional constipation. 

That being said, having finished the first book and knowing all the trials she had to face in the arena, I can sort of understand her reluctance to begin a romantic relationship with anyone.  There are so many things that get tied up with that and her biggest concern is never having to see her child go to the Hunger Games.  I wonder how the outer districts have been able to not revolt against their government, seeing their children offered up year after year for this terrible ritual.  How badly did the Capitol destroy District 13, some 74 years ago, that has put all of these people into a comatose state when it comes to their own health and well-being?  They don't like the Hunger Games, or the way things are run, but they accept it and do nothing to change it.  What happened to them, as a culture, to just make them roll over like that?

A great commentary on society as a whole.  We have the starving, struggling districts around the gleaming capitol where people alter their bodies for cosmetic reasons and have no concept of how the world outside is suffering.  A place where the sacrifice of children is seen as the latest in entertainment and it is watched willingly.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in an entertaining story.  Though, I will say, up front, that this is YA fiction and one should remember that while reading.  I've read that one of the influences for the novel was the Greek Myth about Theseus and the Minotaur and I have to say I am very glad it was handled as well as it was.