The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins, 2008
Science fiction Young adultFantasyContemporary fiction
A sixteen-year-old volunteers for a televised fight to the death, and learns that survival is a performance, a rebellion, and a love story all at once. A tense, satirical dystopia that moves fast, with a wary first-person voice and a constant hum of dread.
Feels like serenity, dread and hope. About society, power and identity.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy fast-paced YA science fiction with reality-TV satire and a survival plot. Be aware that the premise is bleak and violent, with teenagers forced into a televised fight to the death.
Why read it
It shows how entertainment, power and survival twist together, and why a rigged game can still become a site of resistance.
A page from the book
A question that sounds like flirtation, answered like a vow.
I can feel Peeta press his forehead into my temple and he asks, ‘So now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?’ I turn into him. ‘Put you somewhere you can’t get hurt. Suzanne Collins.Collins has said the idea came to her while channel-surfing between a reality TV show and footage of the Iraq War.
Books that feel like this
More by Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins, 2008
In a dystopian America, survival means a dangerous dance between rebellion and the crushing power of a totalitarian Capitol.
Mockingjay
Suzanne Collins, 2010
The final Hunger Games volume: the girl who survived the state's televised death match is now the face of a war she never wanted to lead.
Sunrise on the Reaping
Suzanne Collins, 2025
Before he was District 12's ruined victor, Haymitch Abernathy was a boy with a girl, a family, and a reaping. The 50th Hunger Games, from the inside.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Hunger Games for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy fast-paced YA science fiction with reality-TV satire and a survival plot. Be aware that the premise is bleak and violent, with teenagers forced into a televised fight to the death.
- What is The Hunger Games like?
- A tense, satirical dystopia that moves fast, with a wary first-person voice and a constant hum of dread. Feels like serenity, dread and hope. About society, power and identity.
- What should I read after The Hunger Games?
- If you liked The Hunger Games, try The Last Flight (Julie Clark), Warbreaker (Brandon Sanderson) and Shadow and Bone (Leigh Bardugo).
A taste of the feed
The weight of being heard, in spaces meant to break you.
Dedicated to all the women who have come forward with their stories. Whether it be in front of a congressional panel on live television or alone in a windowless human resources office—we hear you. We believe you.
The Last Flight · Julie Clark
A god who has everything answers to no one, especially not decorum.
She’s only seventeen years old,” Llarimar said. “I can’t imagine being married to the God King at her age.” “I can’t imagine you being married to the God King at any age, Scoot,” Lightsong said. Then he pointedly cringed. “Actually, yes I can imagine it, and the dress looks painfully inelegant on you. Make a note to have my imagination flogged for its insolence in showing me that par tic u lar sight.” “I’ll put it in line right behind your sense of decorum, Your Grace,” Llarimar said dryly. “Don’t be silly,” Lightsong said, taking a sip of wine. “I haven’t had one of those in years.
Warbreaker · Brandon Sanderson
If we weighed every consequence, we would never leave the chair.
If, before every action, we were to begin by weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probable, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt. The good and evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much talked of immortality.
Blindness · José Saramago
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