The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is a best-selling young adult dystopian novel, the first in Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy. It details the life of teenage heroine Katniss Everdeen as she fights to the death for the entertainment of her fascist government. Since its publication in 2008, the trilogy has sold more than 65 million copies in the United States alone and, in 2019, was listed as one of 100 most influential novels by BBC News. The Hunger Games books were adapted into films starring Jennifer Lawrence. The film series is also highly acclaimed, resulting in 55 awards and 140 award nominations.

Plot Summary

The story takes place in Panem, a postapocalyptic America divided into districts that are controlled by the Capitol. Protagonist and first-person narrator Katniss Everdeen is from District 12, which supplies the coal that powers the nation. The districts suffer from poverty and oppression made worse by the fact that every year, two “tributes” from each district must fight to the death in the Hunger Games. Those tributes are always children.

The book begins with Katniss and her younger sister Prim preparing for the reaping, the ceremony in which tributes are chosen.