From the moment she steps up to take her sister's place in the Hunger Games, Katniss throws the Capitol's meticulously planned annual punishment out of whack. We learn it's rare to see anyone volunteer to take another's place in the Games, especially in a district without the means to train Careers. Thus to many her act must have been viewed as a ( Read more... )

MOD NOTE: Hi all, You may have noticed that
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Whether you love ’em or hate ’em, secondary characters are an important part of any story. The Hunger Games certainly wouldn’t have been the same without Haymitch, Prim, Cinna, Effie, the other tributes, and even President Snow and the Gamemakers. Their relationships with Katniss and their driving roles in the plot serve to enrich the story and to ( Read more... )

The rules of the Hunger Games are simple. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the ( Read more... )

For someone who guards her heart so fiercely, Katniss Everdeen has certainly gotten herself into quite the romantic quandary. Oh, to be torn between two guys as great as Gale Hawthorne and Peeta Mellark, though, yeah? Whether a romantic endgame is in the cards for Katniss with either of them remains to be seen, but there is no question that Kat/ ( Read more... )

Having celebrated America’s independence little more than a week ago, it’s a bit strange to contemplate how a nation so strong could ever possibly become Suzanne Collins’ ambiguously futuristic Panem. How highly prized ideals like governance by the people and various inherent rights and freedoms could give way to a country in which the average ( Read more... )