Okay, I think it’s time to return to book reviews.
I will start with my favourite series, the Hunger Games trilogy. This trilogy is composed of The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and
Mockingjay.
Basically… a war destroyed North America, but from the rubbles rose a dictatorship called Panem. Panem is made up of a high-tech metropolis called the capitol surrounded by 13 districts where the citizens live in poverty, follow harsh rules and work hard labour so that the capitol’s residents can live a life of luxuries. The people in the districts had enough and the rebelled, but they were crushed by the capitol and district 13 was completely destroyed; every living thing in the thirteenth district – killed.
After the rebellion, the capitol cracked down on the districts, made stricter rule, cut of all communication from the individual districts, and stripped them of all technology and weapons.
On top of that, the capitol came up with a very creative way to constantly remind the people who’s in charge. Every year, using a lottery system, one boy between the ages of 12 to 18 are chosen from every district. They are put into an arena full of weapons, and supplies and traps. They are then forced to fight to the death in a fully televised event for the capitol’s entertainment. This is called the Hunger Games.
The actual series started a few days before the 74th Hunger Games.
Besides being fantastically written, this trilogy is also quite significant to me. When I felt that I was too old of children’s novels, but I can’t find any young adult novels that weren’t extremely girly, I became disillusioned and stopped reading. About 2 years later, The Hunger Games came out and my English teacher made our class read it for a novel study. That’s when I realized how great YA novels can be.
