Reading: The Hunger Games

Now that Twilight is done and over with, I’m moving on to Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games. Now I have to admit I’ve had to start the book over at least two times because I just couldn’t really get into the beginning. A few of my friends have read the series and have only great things to say about it. After the third time starting it I finally got into it. Here’s a summary through page 34.

The setting is in this place called Panem, which is made up of twelve districts. The control and rules the government has on these districts reminds me of the movie The Truman Story and the book The Giver because the people are several monitored and told how to live their lives. Katniss, the main character, lives in District 12 with her mom, her younger sister Prim, and her sister’s cat Buttercup. District 12, also known as the Seam, is by far the worst district to live in because it’s exceptionally poor, and the citizens are used to a life of starvation. This made me think of all the third world countries there are, and how awful the conditions are. Also, we, as Americans, don’t realize all that we really have compared to the people living in places, like Haiti.
A majority of District 12 citizens are coal miners. Katniss’s dad was a coal miner, who unfortunately died in a mining accident, and ever since he died, Katniss has had the responsibility caring for her family. I can’t imagine all the work she has to put in to provide for her family entirely on her own. I mean she’s only sixteen years old. I’m seventeen and I don’t even have a job! I don’t know how she manages to do it. To provide her family with food, she illegally leaves the District to go to the meadow to hunt. With the help of her father’s bow and her friend Gale, Katniss is able to hunt several animals in the woods. Often times the two friends will take their game to a place called the Hob, a black market where they are able to make money and trade for other food. Gale and Katniss are very close friends. Everyone has to have a ‘Gale’ in their life! While hiding out in the woods, they begin to talk about what it would be like to run away and the Hunger Games.
For the people of District 12, along with a few of the other districts, the Hunger Games are anything but a holiday. As an attempt to prevent rebellions from the districts, the capital (Panem’s government), holds this huge event known as the Hunger Games. This event is basically a ‘survival of the fittest’ scenario in which the contestants fight till each other’s deaths. Each of the twelve districts are required to provide the games with a male and a female between the ages of 12 and 18, these competitors are selected using a lottery system. Additional ‘tickets’ for the lottery can be bought in exchange for oil and grain, also known as tesserae. All of the competitors’ ‘tickets’ are cumulative. Katniss has taken tesserae every year till now (remember she’s sixteen). So now, Katniss will have twenty ‘tickets’ in the lottery (in the book the lottery is referred to as the ‘reaping’). In some cases, like Gale’s, he’s has to provide for his family of five, children may have around forty ‘tickets’ in the lottery. Other districts, however, take pride in participating in these games, and have their children bred to ‘play.’
Katniss returns home, puts on her mother’s fancy dress, and even lets her mother do her hair. Going into the reaping ceremony Katniss is determined to do everything she can to protect her younger sister. I’d do the same thing, I love my little sister, and wouldn’t want her to go to the games and die. Everyone in District 12 is gathered around the square for the drawing. All of the children from the district are herded into designated areas determined by age. The mayor, Mr. Undersee, gives his repedative speech about the history of Panem, and the capital’s escort, Effie Trinket introduces District 12’s only winner, Haymitch Abernathy. Once all of that is done Effie draws the names from the lottery. While Effie is fishing around for a name in the lottery bowl, Katniss goes over her odds of being chosen in her head. She picks a paper and reads a loud the name, “Primrose Everdeen.”
In a panic Katniss takes off running towards the stage volunteering to take Prim’s place in the Hunger Games. Even though volunteering is not usually apart of the reaping, it is however, accepted. Prim’s reacts by clinging onto Katniss begging her not to go. Effie draws the Peeta Mellark as the boy competitor.
Katniss flashes back to her first memory of Peeta when he was beaten by his mother for giving Katniss a few pieces of bread for her family in their time of starvation. She was amazed that Peeta, not even knowing her, would do something like that for her. Remembering the current situation, Katniss convinces herself that she needs to forget about what happened with Peeta so she can focus on the games,but she thinks to herself "there will be twenty-four of us. Odds are someone else will kill him before I do."

Well that’s the end of this summary (even though I hated stopping here, because it's finally getting interesting) this is all I have time for today! Thanks for reading.