The Hunger Games: Refreshing my memory

I am actually one of the many people in the world who have read Suzanne Collins' book The Hunger Games before. I really enjoyed it the first time, though, so re-reading the first five chapters wasn't a big deal.

If you have not read the book before (or even haven't watched the movie somehow) here's what you should probably know: a while back there was a nuclear war during an uprising of the people against the government. The government won in the end and separated the people into twelve districts. There was a thirteenth but it was destroyed by more nuclear war. Each district has it's own specialty such as grains, coal, weapons, etc. The focus of the story, though, is the games the capital throws each year. Every year, every person between the ages of 12 and 18 from each of the districts gets one slip with their name on it entered into a glass bowl. Then, when reaping time comes around, a representative from the capital goes to each district and draws out one girl name and one boy name. These are the chosen fighters from that district who are sent to the games. "What are the games?" you may be wondering at this point. Well, after the uprising, the capital decided that it needed a way to prevent anything like that from happening ever again. They decided that the best way to do this was to make the districts basically live in a state of severe poverty, and then have these "tributes" fight to the death. There would only be one winner.

To me, this idea sounds like someone in the capital's own Modest Proposal. Instead of eating children, though, they decided to just have them kill each other as entertainment.

This year's reaping was supposed to be Katniss's (the main character) last one since she was 18. However, when her sister's name (Prim) was pulled out of the glass bowl she did not hesitate to volunteer herself as tribute in place of Prim. And so her journey began...