The Hunger Games

In light of the coming movie, I want to do a review of an extremely good book I just read: The Hunger Games.

Title: The Hunger Games

Author: Suzanne Collins

Rating: 96%

Notes: This is a bit gruesome and romantic and stuff, but a great read. It will have you identifying with Katniss, the illegal huntress before the second page, and will keep you thinking about it for weeks afterwards. It is also quite disgusting at times.

Plot Summary: It is set in the ruins of North America, with 12 districts surrounding the industrialized Capitol. Annually, the Hunger Games come on, a TV programme where 24 teenagers are chosen at random and have to battle it out to claim victory and effectively freedom. Katniss Everdeen is chosen and has to fight other, bigger people in an arena controlled mechanically by the gamemakers. The 'tributes' have to make alliances, enemies and survive by any means possible. I recommend to any reader who is not too squeamish or emotional.

Once, Then, Now

After just finishing the last one in this trilogy in 30 minutes, I think I have already given you an idea of how hard they are to read. But I did like them, and they are about scary stuff.

Title: Once, Then, Now (Trilogy)

Author: Morris Gleitzman

Rating: 79%

Notes: These are quite light reads, and definitely children's books, but they are nice for a laid-back hour or possibly two, and help educate one about the war and in the last one about bush fires a bit. He is a good writer, and they are written in a hard way, not to read but the way he has written them in a sort of straight-forward manner: sorry that I'm being inarticulate here but I hope you know what I mean.

Plot Summary: Once and Then are about Felix, an eleven year old, coping with the war and taking in a small girl called Zelda. They nearly get sent to a concentration camp, and then get adopted by a kind lady, but eventually they struggle through. In Now, it is Felix's granddaughter Zelda telling the story of how she thought she had started a bush fire, and showing how kind Felix is and how she helps the older girl who bullied her in school.