I’d been somewhat resistant to reading this book/series, in part because I am generally not crazy about dystopian fiction, and in part because the premise seemed so horrible/violent. Which, of course, it is: each year, twelve boys and twelve girls between the age of twelve and eighteen, called tributes, are made to fight to the death in a televised spectacle. The Hunger Games is set in a country called Panem, which is actually what used to be North America; Panem is ruled from the rich and technologically advanced Capitol, which is provided for by the twelve outlying Districts, which are rich or impoverished in varying degrees. District 12, where Katniss Everdeen lives, is in what used to be Appalachia; coal mining is still its main industry and it’s quite poor. (The Districts tried, at one point, to rebel against the Capitol, which subdued them harshly, obliterating a thirteenth District entirely. It was as part of the treaty between the Capitol and the Districts that The Hunger Games, the aforementioned televised spectacle, were established.) But enough plot and world-building: you probably already know all this.
What won me over was Katniss’s narrative voice, and the momentum of the story: the book is narrated in first-person, present tense, so the reader is with Katniss from the start. That takes away some suspense: clearly she’s telling the story, so clearly she lives. But there’s enough suspense otherwise that it doesn’t matter: it’s not knowing that she gets through the Games that’s important; it’s wanting to know how she gets through the Games. We know from the start that she’s a skilled hunter, and she also knows how to forage—she’s been supporting her mom and sister since her father died in a mining accident when she was 11. She knows from hunting how to be silent and patient, how to make plans and set snares. She’s practical. But she also has a temper. I can’t describe what it was about her voice that was so compelling, but it totally carried me through the book. Also compelling are her relationships with the other tributes, particularly Rue, the girl from District 11 who reminds Katniss of her little sister (whose place in the Games she volunteered to take) and Peeta, the boy from District 12, who Katniss knows but doesn’t know well. (There’s a whole romance subplot that’s alternately pleasing and frustrating, but I think more pleasing than not.)
The other interesting piece is the question of rebellion: of whether, and how, it’s possible for Katniss or anyone else from the Districts to rebel in a meaningful way. The Capitol is harsh with punishments: criminals are executed, or have their tongues cut out and are made to act as servants. The thought of not participating in the Games seems unimaginable, partly because of expectations—no one wants to seem weak, everyone wants their district to reap the rewards if they win, and everyone’s afraid of punishment from the Capitol—but also partly because of logistics: the tributes are guarded from the time they learn they have to compete until the time when the Games start. (This doesn’t seem like a totally satisfying explanation, but eh, I was semi-willing to suspend disbelief.) I liked the below passage, from right before the Games start, and I’ll be interested to see where Collins goes with this in the rest of the series:
While I’ve been ruminating on the availability of trees, Peeta has been struggling with how to maintain his identity. His purity of self. “Do you mean you won’t kill anyone?” I ask.
“No, when the time comes, I’m sure I’ll kill just like everybody else. I can’t go down without a fight. Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to…to show the Capitol they don’t own me. That I’m more than just a piece in their Games,” says Peeta.
“But you’re not,” I say. “None of us are. That’s how the Games work.”
“Okay, but within that framework, there’s still you, there’s still me,” he insists. “Don’t you see?” (142)
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