The Hunger Games Trilogy

THE HUNGER GAMES
CATCHING FIRE
MOCKINGJAY
Suzanne Collins

If I'm going to cry, now is the time to do it.  By morning, I'll be able to wash the damage done by the tears from my face.  But no tears come.  I'm too tired or too numb to cry.  The only thing I feel is a desire to be somewhere else.

This summer Twitter was, well...uhm, all a-twitter about the release of Mockingjay. Mockingjay is the third and final installment of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. I hadn't read any of the books. One of my students had recommended them to me last year but I just hadn't gotten around to them. I posed that I needed to get with the program. My awesome and very wise twitter friend Laura suggested I get all three at one time so I wouldn't have to wait to read the next one.

That was, perhaps, the best advice I've received in some time. My momma gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card (that she got with her AMEX points, she is the queen of this - believe it) and I downloaded them on the Nook at once.

All three books are woven through and through with AWESOME. I don't even know which book is my favorite of the three since I read them back to back. I kind of think of them as one large book.

The books follow Katniss, a citizen of Panem. Panem is a controlled environment, to say the least. It is made of up of 12 districts and The Capital. Each year, two children in each district must compete in the Hunger Games. I wouldn't spoil it but it's reality television to the extreme.  And it's all for the Capital's entertainment. Over the course of the books Katniss moves from simply a competitor to warrior to a rebel to a leader.

The thing that made me love The Hunger Game books is Suzanne Collins' world building.  Every time I opened the books, I was transported to Katniss' world.  I was there with her.  I felt her emotions.  Oh, and the twists.  Collins is master of the plot twist.  You never see them coming but they always fit. 

Recommendation: 7th grade and up
Rating: Loved It! (Loved Them!)