Buffy The Vampire Slayer
I just finished the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. It's a great page turner, though not without its flaws Technically, they're young adult books, but in a world where Harry Potter and Twilight dominate the best seller lists, and the New York Times saw fit to review Mockingjay this week, so there's no shame in checking them out even if you're not a young adult.
The books are set in the future, in the dystopia of Panem, which was once North America. There, the Capital rules over 12 Districts. Technically, it still is North America, since it's not so far in the future continents have drifted. I assume Collins means it was once the U.S., and maybe parts of Canada and Mexico. It's really not too important to the plot. Other than mentioning that District 12 is somewhere in the Appalachian coal mines, the geography isn't mentioned much. I suppose if I wanted to study the books more closely, or look up a FAQ, I could find out where each was.
Anyway, the Capital controls the Districts with an iron fist, keeping them too poor to rebel. The heroine of the series, Katniss Everdeen, comes from District 12. Even though it's a coal mine, they have to buy fuel to heat their homes at exhorbitant prices. Food is scarce, and Katniss helps supplement her family's meager income by hunting -- which would be punishable by death if she got caught. To make matters worse, once a year, to punish the districts for the rebellion of the 13th, the Capital draws the name of a boy and a girl from each district to compete in the Hunger Games. The 24 competitors are put into a specialty arena, and forced to fight to the death, until only one survives.
When her little sister's name is drawn, Katniss volunteers to take her place. The boy chosen from District 12 is Peeta, who complicates things before they go into the arena by saying he's always loved Katniss.
I don't want to give away too much, though since there's three books, it's safe to say Katniss survives the Hunger Games. The later books take on a bigger scope than the first one, expanding the world beyond her attempt to survive the death match and into an attempt to survive the much bigger death match of life and politics.
If you want a good page turner, I recommend reading the series. I went through the three books in under a week. There is some intense imagery I imagine could disturb people, but I expect cruelty in my dystopias. (Then again, I read 1984 when I was 10 and was unfazed by the scenes of Winston Smith being tortured. So I may not be a good judge of something going too far.) So I'm not too upset by hideous genetically engineered monsters or people slowly dying of horrible wounds.
One complaint: you keep hearing music when you read the series. Every time I looked at the first book, this song came to mind.
Catching Fire suffers a bit from middle child syndrome. It's the weakest book in the trilogy, often either repeating things from the first or setting things up for the final. But it does remind me of a song too, which I put in the opening quote of this entry. Rather than post from the original episode, here's the song in a family reenactment of the musical episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, just because it's so weird.
The third book is good, with the most depth of the series. It's also musically memorable:
Also, while Katniss was charismatic and sometimes clever, she's not the sharpest tool in the box. ("Why does she act so dumb?" I asked my sister, who loaned me the books. "She's 16," she replied. That does explain a lot.) Also, as young adult novel, the series doesn't want to go over the heads of its readers. So sometimes things just go on too long. At some points I just wanted to reach into the pages and shake some sense into her.
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