The Hunger Games Craze

I'm sure many of you have heard of the movie that recently came out called "The Hunger Games". The movie is based of the book with the same title by Suzanne Collins. I have heard talk about it all over the radio, magazines, as well as Facebook. For those of you who don't know, here is a link of the trailer for the movie .At first I honestly wanted nothing to do with the movie or the books since the hype of it is so big. I don't know, for some reason I don't like when that happens. I also could not see how the story of kids going into an arena to kill each other could be good at all. That sounds so depressing. It was not until a few days after I saw the movie against my will, that I decided I actually like the story, and now I can't get enough of it. In the past two weeks I have managed to read the first two books, and am currently on the 3rd one. The title for each book is "The Hunger Games", "Catching Fire", and "Mockingjay" in that order. You have to understand that this is pretty impressive considering the amount of homework as well as the hours I put in at my job. It really does not leave me much time to read for my own pleasure. A brief summary of the story is that it takes you into the life of Katniss Everdeen in the fictional world of Panem. The world is run by the Capitol, and there are twelve districts under it. Each year the Capitol hosts the annual tradition of the hunger games each capitol has to choose one boy and one girl to send to compete. The one person that wins out of the twenty-four gets blessed with enough food to last them a long while since food is scarce at this time. Katniss ends up going to the games in order to save her sister. That is where it all begins anyway, but it gets so good.
For those who were like me and thought the plot was too depressing, and maybe even somewhat crazy to even come up with, I recently learned that the author of the books got her idea for this story from Greek mythology. The story was that Minos forces the city of Athens to sacrifice seven boys in girls as punishment for past crimes, much like in the book.  I realize wikepedia is not the best site for sources, but I found that to make sense once reading the book and seeing the movie.
Even though the movie and book have a lot of similarities, there is so much in the book that the movie leaves out. This is understandable considering the movie is almost two and a half hours so adding everything else would have made it extensive to watch. Overall the reviews for both the film and the books have been pretty good. This site gives many good reviews of what people have said about the film. I am glad that they left some of the gore that is in the book out of the movie. There is some of it that would not be pleasant to watch. Overall I say that anyone who has any sort of interest in this story should at least try to watch the film or read the book. The story is more than just about kids having to go kill each other for the entertainment of the people in the Capitol, it is also about survival, love, and courage. I hate to admit that I am one of those people who loves this story. If the tickets for the movie theater weren't so expensive I would probably go see the movie a second time.