The Hunger Games (novel)
The Hunger Games is a 2008 dystopian young adult novel by the American writer Suzanne Collins. It is written in the perspective of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in the future, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in North America. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, exercises political control over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games is an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12–18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle royale to the death.
Author
United States
English
September 14, 2008 (Scholastic Press)
Print (hardcover, paperback)
374
PZ7.C6837 Hun 2008
The book received critical acclaim from major reviewers and authors. It was praised for its plot and character development. In writing The Hunger Games, Collins drew upon Greek mythology, Roman gladiatorial games, and contemporary reality television for thematic content. The novel won many awards, including the California Young Reader Medal, and was named one of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of the Year" in 2008.
The Hunger Games was first published in hardcover on September 14, 2008, by Scholastic, featuring a cover designed by Tim O'Brien. It has since been released in paperback and also as an audiobook and ebook. After an initial print of 200,000, the book had sold 800,000 copies by February 2010. Since its release, The Hunger Games has been translated into 26 languages, and publishing rights have been sold in 38 territories. The novel is the first in The Hunger Games trilogy, followed by Catching Fire (2009) and Mockingjay (2010). A film adaptation, directed by Gary Ross and co-written and co-produced by Collins herself, was released in 2012.
Background
Collins has said that the inspiration for The Hunger Games came from channel surfing on television. On one channel she observed people competing on a reality show and on another she saw footage of the invasion of Iraq. The two "began to blur in this very unsettling way" and the idea for the book was formed.[2] The Greek myth of Theseus served as a major basis for the story, with Collins describing Katniss as a futuristic Theseus, and Roman gladiatorial games provided the framework. The sense of loss that Collins developed through her father's service in the Vietnam War was also an influence on the story, with Katniss having lost her father at age 11, five years before the story begins.[3] Collins stated that the deaths of young characters and other "dark passages" were the most difficult parts of the book to write, but that she had accepted that passages such as these were necessary to the story.[4] She considered the moments where Katniss reflects on happier moments in her past to be more enjoyable.[4]
Publication history
After writing the novel, Collins signed a six-figure deal for three books with Scholastic. First published as a hardcover in the United States on September 14, 2008, The Hunger Games had a first printing of 50,000 copies, which was bumped up twice to 200,000 copies.[2] By February 2010, the book had sold 800,000 copies,[15] and rights to the novel had been sold in 38 territories worldwide.[15] A few months later, in July, the book was released in paperback.[16] The Hunger Games entered the New York Times Best Seller list in November 2008,[17] where it would feature for over 100 consecutive weeks.[18] By the time the film adaptation of The Hunger Games was released in March 2012, the book had been on USA Today's best-sellers list for 135 consecutive weeks and has sold over 17.5 million copies.[19][20]
The novel is the first in The Hunger Games trilogy; it is followed by sequels Catching Fire (2009) and Mockingjay (2010). In March 2012, during the time of The Hunger Games film's release, Scholastic reported 26 million Hunger Games trilogy books in print, including movie tie-in books.[21] The Hunger Games (and its sequels) have sold exceptionally well in ebook format. Suzanne Collins is the first children's or young adult author to sell over one million Amazon Kindle ebooks, making her the sixth author to join the "Kindle Million Club".[22] In March 2012, Amazon announced that Collins had become the best-selling Kindle ebook author of all time.[23]
An audiobook version of The Hunger Games was released in December 2008. Read by the actress Carolyn McCormick, it has a total running time of eleven hours and fourteen minutes.[24] The magazine AudioFile said: "Carolyn McCormick gives a detailed and attentive narration. However, she may rely too much on the strength of the prose without providing the drama young adult listeners often enjoy."[25] School Library Journal also praised the audiobook, stating that "McCormick ably voices the action-packed sequences and Katniss's every fear and strength shines through, along with her doomed growing attraction to one of her fellow Tributes."[26]
The Tim O'Brien-designed cover features a gold "mockingjay" – a fictional bird in The Hunger Games born by crossbreeding female mockingbirds and genetically engineered male "jabberjays" – with an arrow engraved in a circle. This is a depiction of the pin worn by Katniss into the arena, given to her by the District 12 mayor's daughter, Madge Undersee.[27] The image matches the description of the pin that is given in the novel, except for the arrow: "It's as if someone fashioned a small golden bird and then attached a ring around it. The bird is connected to the ring only by its wing tips."[28]
Critical reception
The Hunger Games has received critical acclaim. In a review for The New York Times, John Green wrote that the novel was "brilliantly plotted and perfectly paced", and that "the considerable strength of the novel comes in Collins's convincingly detailed world-building and her memorably complex and fascinating heroine." However, he also noted that, while allegorically rich, the book sometimes does not realize the allegorical potential that the plot has to offer and that the writing "described the action and little else."[29] Time magazine's review was also positive, stating that it "is a chilling, bloody and thoroughly horrifying book" and praising what it called the "hypnotic" quality of the violence.[30] In Stephen King's review for Entertainment Weekly, he compared it to "shoot-it-if-it-moves videogames in the lobby of the local eightplex; you know it's not real, but you keep plugging in quarters anyway." However, he stated that there were "displays of authorial laziness that kids will accept more readily than adults" and that the love triangle was standard for the genre. He gave the book a B grade.[31] Elizabeth Bird of School Library Journal praised the novel, saying it is "exciting, poignant, thoughtful, and breathtaking by turns", and called it one of the best books of 2008.[32] Booklist also gave a positive review, praising the character violence and romance involved in the book.[33] Kirkus Reviews gave a positive review, praising the action and world-building, but pointed out that "poor copyediting in the first printing will distract careful readers–a crying shame".[34] Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, claims it is the "closest thing to a perfect adventure novel" he has ever read.[35] Stephenie Meyer (author of the Twilight series) endorsed the book on her website, saying, "I was so obsessed with this book ...
The Hunger Games is amazing."[36]
The Hunger Games received many awards and honors. It was named one of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of the Year" in 2008[37] and a New York Times "Notable Children's Book of 2008".[38] It was the 2009 winner of the Golden Duck Award in the Young Adult Fiction Category.[39] The Hunger Games was also a "2008 Cybil Winner" for fantasy and science-fiction books along with The Graveyard Book,[40] one of School Library Journal's "Best Books 2008",[41] and a "Booklist Editors' Choice" in 2008.[42] In 2011, the book won the California Young Reader Medal.[43] In the 2012 edition of Scholastic's Parent and Child magazine, The Hunger Games was listed as the 33rd-best book for children, with the award for "Most Exciting Ending".[44][45] The novel is one of the top 5 best selling Kindle books of all time.[46] However, the novel has also been controversial with parents;[47] it ranked in fifth place on the American Library Association's list of frequently challenged books for 2010, with "unsuited to age group" and "violence" being among the reasons cited.[48]
Similarities of The Hunger Games to Koushun Takami's 1999 novel Battle Royale have been noted.[49] Collins stated that she "had never heard of that book or that author until my book was turned in. At that point, it was mentioned to me, and I asked my editor if I should read it. He said: 'No, I don't want that world in your head. Just continue with what you're doing'." [49] Susan Dominus of The New York Times reports that "the parallels are striking enough that Collins's work has been savaged on the blogosphere as a baldfaced ripoff" of Battle Royale but argued that "there are enough possible sources for the plot line that the two authors might well have hit on the same basic setup independently."[50] Stephen King noted that the reality TV "badlands" were similar to Battle Royale, as well as his own novels The Running Man and The Long Walk.[31] The story has also been compared to the 1965 Italian cult film The 10th Victim by Elio Petri, based on Robert Sheckley's 1953 short story "Seventh Victim".[51]