"Hunger Games"

This is the first book I have finished in one weekend since Dumbledore died.  I didn't have very high expectations for this book, mainly because it was recommended to me by my Twilight obsessed wife, who said "it's like twilight, but in the future!"

Thankfully it is nothing like twilight.  The main character is a teenage girl, there are two love interests, and many people are trying to kill her, but that is where the similarities end.  Katniss is no damsel in distress, but the hard core angle is not overplayed either.  The author is not trying to create a badass yet "vulnerable" heroine, as much as some anime fans might have wanted her too.  What she comes up with is something better:  A character who is driven by love of family and responsibility.  The whiny, selfish, characters in twilight may be more realistic in terms of what teenagers are, but those in Hunger Games are more like you would WANT your teenagers to act, while still being accesible enough that teens ready this book will want to emulate them.

As the critics have already said, this book made for some great suspense, so I won't reiterate.  I will comment on some other things that make this book enjoyable for me personally, such as feeling like someone had put any Gary Paulsen book and "Under the Tuscan Sun" in a blender and baked this up.  So much of the story is focus on the specifics of the food, from the decadent meals served in the Capitol to the squirrels cooked on a spit or eaten raw, I could tastes every bite in my mouth, even when I didn't want to!

The story is fairly predictable, but still smells fresh.  I guess that is the sign of a good storyteller.  Next weekend, I am reading the second installment.