The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins caught my attention quickly and held it fast throughout the rest of the book. The cliffhanger ending prompted me to buy the next two books without thinking twice.

A book like this makes you think about your situation as it is today and the direction everything is going. It is clearly set in a futuristic United States, but it's no future any of us (hopefully) would ever want. It has a corrupt government in every sense of the word. People nowadays may not be happy with the way things are going, but at least we aren't publicly whipped or shot if we want to speak out against things that are happening. We still have so many freedoms that The Hunger Games shows us we should be thankful for.

Who could live in a world where "games" are held every year pitting people–teenagers–against each other in a battle for their lives? Aside from that there is a constant fear of starvation or a fear of things getting worse than they already are, though that is hard to imagine. This government has torturous ways of dealing with difficulties that keeps everyone terrified.

One girl, a hunter who just wants to keep her family alive, especially her little sister, is faced with what she considers no choice. She enters the hunger games to save her sister from having to go. This sacrifice leads her down a road she can't turn away from. Her hunting skills and ability to out-think her opponents–and the government–are the only things keeping her alive. For now. But will the government let her truly win the games?