Hunger Games

I first heard about The Hunger Games when I was chatting with my friend, Karen. We usually talk about two things: what we love and what we hate. At the time, she was gushing about these two books she just read called The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, the latter being a sequel to the first. She said I had to read it. She was telling me something about an e-book so I searched for it. All the previous books in my iBook shelf were downloaded directly to the iPad. It took me a while to figure out how to convert files to .epub (the format for iBook) and when I finally got it, I devoured both books right away.

I know the covers aren’t as “cute” as an apple in a girl’s hands or as “artsy” as any of the Harry Potter books but you know what they say about judging books by their covers…

I absolutely loved them! I loved them so much that even if I had already read them on the iPad, I still bought hardbound copies of the books! If you liked Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (my favorite of the series), you will love this trilogy. The last book (Mockingjay) just came out last August 25 and I’ve yet to read it.

So it’s about this girl named Katniss Everdeen who lives in Panem. Let me just cut and paste stuff from Wikipedia for you guys to understand what it’s all about. (I suggest you don’t go to the Wikipedia entry yourself because it’ll just spoil it for you.)

The Hunger Games takes place in an unidentified future time period after the destruction of North America, in a nation known as Panem.

Panem is the nation that “rose out of the ashes” of what was previously North America. Panem consists of a wealthy Capitol and twelve poorer districts, with a thirteenth district destroyed in a past rebellion.

As punishment for [the thirteenth district’s rebellion] against the Capitol, every year one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each district are selected at random and forced to participate in the Hunger Games, a televised event where the participants, or “tributes”, must fight to the death in a dangerous outdoor arena until only one remains.

Government control is a prominent theme throughout, as the Hunger Games is a form of control used by the Capitol to show their power over the districts and a punishment for rebelling against the Capitol in the past.

Doesn’t that sound awesome!? Of course, there’s a love story too. A teenage love triangle, actually, but not the absolutely stupid kind like Twilight’s Edward-Bella-Jacob. Katniss can be a little self-centered at times but I can’t help but adore her. She kicks ass so hard. I’d love to talk more about the trilogy and the characters but I really don’t want to ruin it for you!

I’ve already downloaded the e-book for Mockingjay.

Thanks to National Bookstore because they’re giving me a hard copy too! I’m going to start reading it tonight after doing my duties. This calls for no distractions!

You can get your own copies of all three books at any National Bookstore branch! You can even buy them online. This is the first time I’ve been to their website what the hell I can browse and order books online? I love you, NBS. For product information inquiries, general comments and suggestions you can e-mail info@nationalbookstore.com.ph 🙂