good english

Five stars might seem a little extreme, but I think The Hunger Games is one of my favorite YA books of the last few years. It's set in the future, in a pretty bleak world where the government forces a group of children to fight each other to the death in a twisted version of modern reality shows. It's a horrible premise, but there's enough life in the story to keep the dark setting from being overwhelming, for the most part.

I love Katniss, the main character. She's kick-ass and smart. I've seen arguments that she's too naive -- referring to any romantic subplots -- but I found her naivete totally believable, given her history and the situation.

I've seen this book referred to as a less gory version of Battle Royale, which I've never read, so I have no idea how close Collins's book hews to that one. I probably won't know any time in the near future, either, since I'm not good with gore. The deaths in The Hunger Games were about as detailed as I can read, but then I am a delicate flower.

It was totally by chance that I downloaded this book in the first place -- I wanted to try out the new Kindle PC app and remembered that I had borrowed The Hunger Games from the library but never got a chance to read it. I'm happy with my luck: it's well-written, well-paced (except for one slow spot), and I liked the story and the characters so much that I've already bought the second book in the trilogy (which is not available for the Kindle, wtf) and am going to read it this weekend.

And that is why The Hunger Games is getting five stars, really. Not just because I loved this book, which I did, but also because I'm EXCITED about the rest of the story and can't wait to find out what happens next.