Hunger Games and Catching Fire- Suzanne Collins

Each fall, we head over the mountains to Winthrop, Washington where we spend a week at Lake Pearygin State Park.  There are lots of things we love to do there, and one of them is visit TrailsEnd bookstore.  I think they've read every book in the place and have great recommondations of which books to read.  I think we'd arrived shortly after book one, The Hunger Games came out in 2008.  Based on their recommondation, we bought it and both Jacob and I loved it.  There are some books that I consume quickly, like going through a fast food drive in.  This was one I savored although the subject manner was painful.

The Hunger Games and its sequel Catching Fire take place in the future.  A rebellion against the government has resulted in a society where the power and wealth are held by people in the "Capital" while everyone else lives in the "districts" divided by each other and each assigned to labor in a specific industry.  The capital is careful to control information getting out to the districts as well as the accumulation of wealth and keeps everyone in a state where hunger is a constant reality.  Each year, in order to remind the districts of the power of the capital, there is a reality tv event called the Hunger Games.  Each district has to send one of their boys and one of their girls to a televised fight to the death that everyone is forced to watch.  The children are chosen by lottery, with some children having extra name slips in the lottery because their families receive extra food for allowing their child's name to be placed in the lottery additional times.  The main character of the books is a teenage girl named Katniss.  She has spent her childhood hunting illegally in the forest near her district in order to feed her widowed mother and younger sister.  The first year her sister is eligible for the hunger games, her name is drawn.  Katniss volunteers in her place and is sent to the hunger games. 

Katniss forms an unlikely relationship with Peeta, the boy who is sent from her district to participate.  They pretend to be in love in order to win support from sponsers who can purchase additional supplies for them while they participate in the hunger games. Spolier Alert!  Quit reading if you don't want a clue of what happens in the end. 

Catching Fire continues Katniss' and Peeta's story as they learn that they have unintentionally become the faces of a rising rebellion.  Eager to difuse their power, the capital changes all the rules of the hunger games and brings them back for another showdown.  The relationship of Katniss and Peeta is further developed but the reader is still left guessing about Katniss' true feelings, I don't think she's sure herself!  I'm eagerly awaiting the conclusion of the trilogy, coming out this September.  Maybe I can buy it at Trail's End bookstore, where I've purchased the first two books.