The Hunger Games Trilogy - Book Review

I have just spent the week reading all three of the Hunger Games books to start off one of my goals on my 30 by 30 list to read 100 books before I'm 30. I have read these books before and seen the first movie (second one is out in Nov 2013).

The first time I read this series I was struck by how sick and twisted the idea is. Sending 24 kids aged 12-18 years old into an arena to fight to the death with one victor. The books are so well written that you can feel what the lead character 'Katniss Everdeen' is feeling. Reading this series for a second time allowed me to really look at the main themes behind the story. War. Poverty. The unfairness of a society that is hungry for entertainment that they will go to any length to satisfy their need. The perversion of a society that can watch children die and then go on to eat their dinner and socialising.

While we don't have the Hunger Games in our world, we do have the news. Whether we want to admit it or not, we do watch children die and then continue on with our day with only a brief moment of thinking "oh how sad and awful!" The wars and genocides that have wracked our planet have been covered on the news which we watch at dinner time. What about those children? Who helped them? Who's helping Syria? What about the child soldiers in Africa? Are they not children being forced to fight to the death?

We can sit around and feel comfortable that the atrocity of children killing other children doesn't exist. Some children and families in this world can not say the same.