Book recommendation: The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

Okay, so maybe I was a bit late on reading The Hunger Games series. I’m not sure why I kept putting it off. I think my main reason was the dystopian/post-apocalyptic aspect, along with the science fiction genre – both of which are things I’m not a big fan of.

But, I decided to give the books a chance. And I’m so very glad my original hesitation turned out to be wrong.

Okay, to be honest, I dipped my toes into the Hunger Games waters with the first movie. I figured it was a good place to start; I usually prefer books over movies, so I knew I was likely to enjoy the books more if I enjoyed the movie. But, at least the movie would give me an idea of whether or not I would like the concept of the books.

Well, needless to say, the movie had me hooked. When it was finished, I knew I had to read the books. So I got my hands on them as soon as I could, and read them fairly quickly.

There were a lot of aspects of the novels that made me reluctant to put them down – the plot, the setting, the character development. But I think it was the relationships between the characters themselves that really caught me.

I’m not referring to the romantic relationships, either, although they definitely did play a role. All of the relationships in the novel – whether they were between lovers, friends, or even enemies – were well-developed. And some even held a bit of intrigue for me. Would this person betray Katniss? Would these two continue to be enemies? Would this person live long enough to become a friend? I think questions like those, more than almost anything else, played a huge role in my desire to keep reading.

**One more quick note. I decided to merge all three of the novels into one post because of how quickly I read them, and because my feelings about each of them didn’t differ enough to warrant three separate posts. However, I only included the summary for the first novel in this post, as the summaries for the second and third novels each contain mild to heavy spoilers and I don’t want to ruin the novels for anyone who hasn’t read them yet.

Goodreads summaries

The Hunger Games

Winning will make you famous.
Losing means certain death.

When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her sister’s place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.