Sometime towards the end of the publishing tsunami that was the Harry Potter Series, publishers began to scrabble around to find a suitable money-making phenomenon to replace him. There was Lemony Snicket, Percy Jackson and the pile of excrement and horrible writing that are the Twilight books- however, although I enjoyed Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, everybody in the publishing world can stop looking for the next Harry Potter- because I've found her and her name is Katniss Everdeen.
The Hunger Games Trilogy opens with the first volume, entitled The Hunger Games, where we meet our heroine Katniss Everdeen, who is a resident of District 12 in a country called Panem which occupies the ancient lands once known as North America. There are 12 Districts and at the center of the country is a shining, dictatorial Capitol and every year each District has to send 2 children, essentially, to fight in what are called 'The Hunger Games' in which they're plopped into an arena and forced to fight to the death. Katniss steps up and volunteers to go in place of sweet younger sister Prim and the first book revolves around her adventures in the arena and how, ultimately, she survives and goes on to win The Hunger Games.
In the second volume of the trilogy, Catching Fire, a victorious Katniss returns home, only to find that she is the target of the Capitol's ire for her defiance in the arena- people are starting to view her as a symbol of resistance and the regime wants her to quell the fires of revolution that are burning throughout her country. She tries- but ultimately fails and a widespread revolution erupts all across Panem and the mysterious District 13 emerges to lead it.
The final volume of the trilogy, Mockingjay tells the story of the revolution against the evil Capitol, lead by District 13. In retaliation for her defiance, the Capitol has destroyed Katniss' home of District 12 and now she has nothing left to lose except her two possible loves, Gale and Peeta and maybe even her life unless she agrees to become the symbol of the revolution itself...
There's obviously more to the books than that, but you're going to have to read them for yourself. Which you should be doing- right now. Go, stop reading this and buy these books, borrow them from the library and read them! They're quick reads, so you won't lose too much time.
OK: I love these books. All of them, every last sentence in them- Suzanne Collins grabs you from word one and doesn't let go until the end of the last book- she writes a powerful, taut, plot-driven series of books that practically crackles with suspense that leaps up off the page and smacks you in the face sometimes and FINALLY we have an author that DOESN'T PULL ANY PUNCHES! I wanted to do cartwheels! The characters in these books wrestle with and make life or death decisions, they have to make horrible choices and explore complex moral themes about what is and isn't justifiable in the course of a war and yes, these books are quite dark in places, but I'm 100% OK with that. These books may have the burdensome designation of being YA Literature or whatever, but the world isn't always a shiny happy place and authors that try and make it that way when they're marketing their books for young adults need to be slapped upside the head. Teenagers know better these days and they should be challenged with complex characters and the sometimes morally questionable decisions everyone can be confronted with and The Hunger Games Trilogy gives them plenty to work with.
It may be a little reminiscent of science fiction movies like 'The Running Man' or 'Logan's Run' and I do think that towards the end of Mockingjay things became a little rushed on the part of the author but ultimately, these books are wonderfully written (unlike Twilight) and feature a strong female main character (also unlike Twilight) and leave you wanting so much more- (exactly what Twilight doesn't do).
Overall: Absolute, 100% MUST READS! You won't regret it! (And they're controversial too... sparking a mild internet eruption courtesy of the WSJ's op-ed page (prompting an alternate take from Salon.com)
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