The Hunger Games Trilogy

The Hunger Games (2009)
Catching Fire (2010)
Mockingjay (2010)
By Suzanne Collins

I recently completed the audiobooks of this trilogy. I have not seen the movies.

These are dystopian books with a young heroine, Katniss Everdeen, who knows how to shoot a bow. In this world, the Capital (a crazy evil place - think Oz in orange and on steroids) holds The Hunger Games every year. Names are chosen from each of the 12 districts that surround the Capital, and a young man or woman must go to the games and fight for his or her life.

Katniss's sister, Prim, who is just of age to go, is chosen and Katniss takes her place instead. Katniss is about 15, I think, when she goes through her first Hunger Game.

Long story short, she and her fellow competitor from District 12 team up, which apparently is a first, and in an act of defiance vow to kill themselves rather than destroy one another. They both win the Hunger Games.

But the next year is the 75th year celebrating the Hunger Games, and the President, whose name is Snow (and his breath smells like blood), declares that former victors in the Hunger Games will return a second time to fight to the death. So Katniss and Petre (not sure of spelling since I listened and didn't read the book) go off to the games a second time.

Only this time the rebels have found the face of their cause: Katniss, whose mockingjay pin has become a symbol of the resistance of the strong arm of the Capital. The resistance intervenes and saves Katniss, but Petre is caught by the Capital and tortured.

Katniss is taken to District 13, an area the Capital has long proclaimed as a dead zone, but it has an entire world underground. Here the rebels have a stronghold and they set about to make Katniss the face of the rebellion. This means a lot of TV promos, but Katniss is having a difficult time with all that has gone on. She's killed people, people have died because of her, and District 12, where she lived, was blown up at the end of book 2. She's a bit distraught (you think?).

Anyway, she finally pulls it together and the rebels take each District, and then head for the Capital. Katniss is determined to kill President Snow. Along the way, though, she has begun to have misgivings about President Coin, the woman ruler of District 13, and her ability to lead. After the rebels take the Capital, killing Katniss's sister Prim in the process, Coin takes over and Snow is put on trial. Katniss had been promised she could kill Snow, but as she aims her bow at Snow, she suddenly turns and puts an arrow in the heart of Coin.

Months later, she's been found not guilty (although she didn't go to any trial, I guess they didn't do it that way), and she goes back to her house where she holes up. Petre finally reaches her and they marry and have children, who play on the meadow which is really a mass grave.

It was well written and an intriguing story. I found some of Robin Hood in there, somewhere, although the author says at the end of the audiobook that the story is based on Greek mythology. It was the kind of book I could listen to while I was driving or folding clothes.

And then I wondered if I were going to write a dystopian novel, what kind of world would I create, and I looked at the newspaper this morning. My only thought? The world we live in now. That's dystopia.