This review was originally published on my blog on September 27th, 2020.

Book Synopsis:

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and once girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.

My Review:

5/5 stars. Agghh, this book gave me all the feels. It was happy, sad, and really nerve-wracking through most of it. I loved the characters and the plot was so dramatic. I can’t wait to read the rest of the books in the series!

So I’m obviously really late to the game in reading this book, seeing as it came out over a decade ago, but I’m so glad I finally got around to it. This review is going to be fairly short because I don’t really have much to say about it except that I loved it.

First, the characters. I loved them all. Katniss, Prim, Rue, and PEETA! (I Peeta so much!) The moment I loved Katniss was when she volunteered to take her sister’s place in a fight to the death. The power of that moment is amazing. I didn’t think any of the characters were overly perfect or made to be too powerful, they all had their flaws and weaknesses.

The plot was crazy intense. Even during the slower parts that weren’t full of action, I wanted to keep turning the pages and reading, so I was able to finish this book really fast. Every chapter ended with a big cliffhanger that I felt like I couldn’t stop reading there. It was so action-packed.

Hunger Games Movie Review

As far as movie adaptations of books go, this one was surprisingly really good.

I thought the second half of the movie was super fast-paced. I understand why, because they had to fit two thirds of a book into about an hour of footage, but I felt like all the major events were just happening one after another without any breaks. I know that it would be really boring to show Katniss just walking for days or sleeping but it would’ve made the pacing of the second half better.

The gore was not nearly as bad as I was expecting. Most of the descriptions of injuries and wounds were very detailed and gross in the book, but it really wasn’t that bad in the movie.

The movie didn’t spend enough time getting to know Rue, so I feel like someone who only watched the movie wouldn’t have much of an emotional attachment to her and therefore wouldn’t be as sad about her death. Again, it goes back to my previous statement, because it would‘ve been a long scene of not much action if they added all that information about her but I wish it was included.

I didn’t really like the way Peeta’s character was portrayed. I love Peeta so much in the book and I didn‘t feel that way about his movie version. They left out a lot of small things that were some of his best moments.

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