One of the best reads for young and old is a trilogy of novels known as The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The story series is about oppression, conquest, the struggle for survival, hunters and victims, deprivation, courage, and a strong love triangle. There are many exciting twists and turns in the series, particularly about who will Katniss choose as her latest love interest: Peetah or Gale, both “citizens” of her district; and rumors of a mysterious D13 and its pivotal role in solving the story. All three books are narrated by Katniss, which lends a deeply personal tone and emotion to the saga. In the first book, after the arena contest, Katniss waits in a basement room for her television appearance. With his actions in the arena at the end, he has aroused the hatred of President Snow, which explains his fears in the following excerpt from the first novel:
The damp, musty smell under the stage threatens to suffocate me. A cold, clammy sweat breaks out on my skin and I can’t shake the feeling that the boards above my head are about to collapse, to bury me alive under the rubble. When I came out of the arena, when the trumpet sounded, I was supposed to be safe. Since then. For the rest of my life. But if what Haymitch (his drunken mentor and former arena winner) says is true and he has no reason to lie, I have never been in such a dangerous place in my life.
The first book in the series, titled The Hunger Games, presents a graphic background to a war that has left the United States divided into 12 districts, each ruled by the victors of a city called El Capitolio. Each district provides a different need for the rulers: for example, D12 supplies coal; another district provides training for peacekeeping troops.
For the past 75 years, the Capitol has held events in the arena. Every year, two young people, a woman and a man, are selected from each district to perform in a fight to the death contest. There are 24 in all. The survivor district earns additional benefits and the survivor earns numerous accolades. After the event, all the young survivors are sent on a victor’s tour of each district.
In the second book, Catching Fire, the drama continues with another Arena Event, in which the vengeful President of the Capitol, Snow, manipulates the selection so that the former winners have to compete again. Snow’s real strategy is to take the victorious woman from Dl2 to another fight in hopes of being killed. The teenager, Katniss Aberdeen, is gradually becoming the “Mockingjay,” a symbol of the growing rebellion against the ruthless oppression of the Capitol.
Mockingjay is the title of the final book in this gripping saga, in which Katniss becomes Mockingjay, the main leading figure of all districts, including District 13, who in the last novel of the trilogy has become the ultimate fortress. for the masses against the might and might of the Capitol. D13 has been able to develop a confrontation with President Snow and his followers because D13 has command of a considerable nuclear force. In this third dramatic saga, Katniss undergoes arduous training as her relationship with the president of D13 grows increasingly strained. His close friend Peetah is in the hands of President Snow and has become mentally unstable. Katniss isn’t sure how to rekindle their relationship when she finally reunites with them.
With time running out, D13 orders an offensive in one of the other districts to begin his campaign to overthrow the Snow regime. Katniss and some of her followers subsequently head underground to the Capitol, where they are eventually followed by a massive force of D13 that Katniss believes is inadvisable at the time. A tragic incident results in a shocking and surprising twist at the end, in which the heroine Mockingjay makes a spontaneous decision that will have far-reaching implications. As a reader, I felt the final book narrative turn pale in that the author should have had Katniss leading the anti-Capitol forces in the city rather than the over-ambitious president of D13.
The Hunger Games books became so popular that four films were licensed, with the first being released in March 2012. Jennifer Lawrence, nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress in Winter’s Bone and winner of Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook, won the lead role of Katniss. It won out such well-known actresses as Abigail Breslin (Zombieland, Little Miss Sunshine), Academy Award nominee Hailey Seinfeld (True Grit) and Shailene Woodley (Tris in Divergent and Hazel Grace in The Fault in Our Stars).
Other actors named to coveted roles include Donald Sutherland, as the sinister President Snow; Lenny Kravitz, as Katniss’s brilliant and loving stylist Cinna (who died in the second Catching Fire film; Woody Harrelson, as her domineering and unpredictable mentor Haymitch; and Josh Hutcherson and Liam Hemsworth as her two would-be lovers, Peetah and Gale. Willow Shields was cast as Prim, Katniss’s younger sister, whose place Katniss held in the first Arena Event. Another character that Katniss teams up with in the first Arena contest is the tiny and tragic Rue, a tribute. From another district, whose only survival talent seemed to be His speed, cast for this role was Amandla Stenberg.