And you don't mind your heart beating so fast that you worry you may be reading your way to a heart attack? While I enjoy a hyperbole now and then, I am not exaggerating to say that while reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, I repeatedly had to stop and get a drink or simply walk away from the book because my heart threatened to pop out of my chest from beating so hard. But, of course, the suspense of NOT reading and finding out what in the world could be happening next was even worse, so once again I would find myself picking up the book and immersing myself in this dystopian world some more.There are some incredible reviews of this book out there that are easy to find, and I don't imagine that my mini-review on the side over there brings anything new to the discussion. All I know is that this book was like none that I've read before. Yeah, it's technically classified as a 'young adult' novel, but it packed a thought-provoking punch that I don't know if I could have handled as a 12 year old. The foray into politics and totalitarianism government, along with the question of how a government made up of human beings could completely lose its humanity is pretty intense stuff. Add to that a barbaric event of Gladiators-meets-reality-tv-meets-"The Lottery" and you've got one frightening saga. The typical adolescent trials and sorta-love-story(ies?) were on the fringe, but made the characters all that more believable, even when the setting is ghastly difficult to comprehend.
As a reader who does NOT find herself wandering the science fiction aisle at the library, as well as not having read a YA book since being categorized as a 'young adult' myself years ago, I very adamantly recommend this book.
Posts
