Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games (Hunger Games #1)

This book was great! I loved it! It did not bother me at all that it is a YA book/series (YA= Young Adult) It was written with a great voice, great flare, it left you with nuggets of side plots to want you and tempt you to keep reading the series. It was very clear about what was happening/going to happen and didn't hide away when the deaths came nor did the author shirk her duty in delivering them. The character relationships suck the reader in and automatically have you picking sides, couples, voting life or voting death. I started the series later so I was able to go by the next too books and devour them because I could not wait to see where Katniss was going to take me next! Here is the jacket write-up from Goodreads for those of you “out of the loop”: 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 one 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, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, 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 will weigh survival against humanity and life against love. Let the Hunger Games begin! P.S. I predict, if done well, that when this comes out as a movie it is going to be the next “Harry Potter.”