The Hunger Games was recommended and lent to me by a coworker. I got through it in two nights and thoroughly enjoyed it. After having the Twilight series recommended to me by another coworker, I was pleasantly surprised to find The Hunger Games to be an intelligent work of young adult fiction. The main character, Katniss, is smart, capable and brave. The story has actual substance and thought behind it. Obviously there were still some elements that are apparently necessary for the teen market; the love triangle for one. But, at least in this first book in the trilogy, it wasn't too in your face and obnoxious.
The book is set a bit in the future after a major war when everything has been divided up into districts surrounding the central government which has taken to an iron authoritarian method to keeping the districts under control. Katniss lives in one of the poorest districts with her mother and younger sister. Each of the districts, through one of the methods the government uses to keep the districts under control, must submit two candidates, a boy and a girl, for the Hunger Games. The candidates are chosen through a lottery after which they are sent to compete to the death. Katniss ends up being one of her district's candidates.
The pacing and the plot of the book also carries it forward. Once set into the Hunger Games, the book moves forward quickly with different alliances and realliances. There were gut-wrenching losses and heart-warming moments that didn't feel overtly emotionally manipulative, but were instead scenes that seemed to flow directly and naturally from the Games and the situations arising from the Games.
The Hunger Games, as well as serving as an oppressive measure to keep the districts in line, also serve as entertainment for the Capital's citizens. They are riveted to it and uncritical of it as a source of entertainment. They go with the flow of the manipulation of their emotions and give no thought to the candidates as actual human beings beyond their entertainment value. It is this background commentary on society and the fearful glimpse of a possible thoughtless, uncaring, self-centered, entertainment-centric future of humanity that sets this book apart from some of the more thoughtless additions to young adult fiction.
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