"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

I have a confession to make: I’m a very stubborn person. One of my pet peeves is when family or friends say something to me like, “You just HAVE to see this movie!” When this statement is paired with the cultural pressure of a viral hit, sometimes I vow to never give in to such pressure. A perfect example is Napoleon Dynamite. I had so many college buddies tell me that I HAD to see that movie, and it was such a pop-culture hit, that I rebelled against their expectations and made myself a promise to never ever see Napoleon Dynamite. To this day, I’ve kept my vow. (A similar thing happened with Nacho Libre)

So, I was close to shutting out “The Hunger Games” completely, but in the end it was the appeal the book and movie had to young people that caused me to read the book. Disclaimer: this is different than “Twilight”. I will never, ever, EVER see or read “Twilight” or any of its sequels. Period.  End of story. I mean, come on. Vampires? Really? Anyway….

Quick plot summary: North America no longer exists. In its place is Panem, a nation divided into 12 districts. Each district is controlled by the Capitol, and each district is responsible for a portion of the economic foundation of Panem (for example, one district does coal mining, one district does agriculture, etc). Of course, the Capitol is a brutal master, and the people are pretty much slaves to the powers that be. Every year, names of a boy and a girl from each district are selected to participate in a fight to the death – the Hunger Games. In an Ancient-Roman-like way, the Capitol glamorizes this expression of their control over the people. Our main character, Katniss Everdeen, is the female participant for District 12.

I will give Suzanne Collins a lot of credit for writing an incredibly captivating story. There are so many good things I can say about it. She covers the full range of human emotions, and she covers them extremely well. She takes a difficult subject (death) and lets us peer inside the mind of a young girl who is facing it honestly. Young people today already think of death – we know this by the suicide rates of teens. But books like these could cause young people to think more deeply about death – and its consequences – which could potentially lead to opportunities for sharing the Gospel.

After all, Katniss, the main character, is stuck in a cruel man-made world where kids fight to the death. In reality, we are all facing imminent death – and none of us knows when it might come. Katniss sees her opponents in the Hunger Games as human – even if they are slightly more savage than she is. In fact, she finds terrible similarities between herself and the negative qualities of those opponents. This is a true-to-life view of human nature. We are all fallen – we are all capable of dreadful evil.

Let me speak for a moment about the death in the book. The author always speaks of death with a sort of sacredness that’s difficult to explain. Katniss avoids killing if at all possible, and only does so when it is necessary for survival. So, the idea I’d had in my mind from highly critical reviews of the book about kids gleefully hacking each other to pieces was not accurate. Yes, kids kill kids in the book. No, the author does not glorify it or make it appealing. She does not present murder as a possible solution to a conflict between young people, or any other such nonsense. There are several scenes that are quite gruesome, but again, the author intended for such scenes to be gruesome.

There is also a bit of romance in the book between young people. I’m of the opinion that young people who think they are in love are highly mistaken. Love is a difficult and life-long decision. It is an emotion tied to the will. It is sacrificial and selfless. Young people tend to see love in a more shallow way. But, in the book, the romance between the young people is not overly sexualized, which I greatly appreciated (true, there is some kissing in the book, but the author does not dwell on sensuality). In a day when kids are made to think that sex, sexiness, romance, physical interaction, and love are worth having RIGHT NOW instead of being worth waiting for, I appreciated that the main character’s parents had a happy and fulfilling marriage, and Katniss also looked ahead several times to thoughts of her own marriage (even though toward the end of the book, she is thinking she will never marry).

Other than two or three minor swear words, I did not take issue with much of the content of the book. The story was fascinating and compelling. The setting and plot was surreal, yet very real. The post-apocalyptic backdrop seemed to be a frightening glimpse into the potential future of the country. We like to think of our nation as too civilized to ever do anything like the Hunger Games for real, but remember that each of us is capable of great evil. And people in power tend to be corrupted more quickly than the powerless.

Since it is part of a trilogy, the book ends in great suspense. But, being a Christian fiction fan, it is difficult to read a book with such sorrow and pain and never see the Healer and Savior make an appearance. Jesus Christ – what a Savior He is! And I only wish that I could introduce every young person who faces the fear of death to the One Who has already conquered death itself.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention, special thanks to JT for letting me borrow his copy of "The Hunger Games"!