The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN YOUR FAVOUR

Winning will make you famous. 

Losing means certain death.

In a dark vision of the near future, twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live TV show called the Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. 

When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen steps forward to take her sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.

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Wow is all I can say about this book. It is both deeply disturbing and amazingly addictive at the same time. I sat up finishing it until 5.30am. It was simply to good to put down. It was a combination of fantastic characters, imaginative writing and a wonderfully fast pace which made the book such fun to read. 

The characters were really well written, I really liked Katniss and Peeta. I was behind them both 100% Every time the cannon sounded my heart all but stopped and I was compelled to read on as quickly as possible to find out who had fallen. I enjoyed the fact that Katniss was a very strong female character, she didn't need or depend on the boys for food, warmth or protection. The fact she was also able to remain kind and sensitive to the feelings of others such as Rue also made her more endearing.

I'll admit in parts it was disturbing but I was aware of that from the beginning. Any book that involves children having o fight for survival and murder each other is obviously going to be hard to read. It is one of the reasons I avoided the book for so long. However I was pleasantly surprised at how well it was dealt with. The author doesn't glorify the killings and in most situations you don't even see the deaths. Instead they are announced by a simple projection into the sky of a photograph of the victim taken before the event began.  It was done tastefully and with the age of the audience in mind. However some people may still find this to much, my partner for one still doesn't like it or what the book portrays so it is honestly down to personal choice. 

Overall I loved the book. It was addictive from start to finish and left me eager for the next installment. In this case I can honestly as that it deserves the hype it has been getting and I'm terribly pleased I decided to give it a go.  

I give this book 5 out of 5 stars. 

It was a thrilling, exciting and thoroughly entertaining book. I plan to keep it and read it again in future.