Why you should be reading The Hunger Games

Since the much anticipated movie, The Hunger Games, is premiering next week (23rd of March, to be exact) I thought it to be very fitting to dedicate my first actual entry to the brilliant trilogy by Suzanne Collins, the books on which the movies are based on.
The fandom behind the Hunger Games has been growing rapidly since the release of the first book, in 2008 and especially now that the general public has been introduced to the upcoming movie. There is talk of the series becoming the next megaseries, just like Harry Potter and Twilight are. No matter how much I dislike comparisons between The Twilight Saga and The Hunger Games, I am thrilled that this brilliant piece of work is getting the attention it deserves.
Now, to the books: The books are of the genre dystopian science fiction set in North America in the near future, in a country called Panem. Panem is divided in 12 different districts and a capital (referred to as The Capitol). The government is in the Capitol and the citizens are rich, snobby, arrogant and flamboyant. The districts are each responsible for one area of production, like agriculture, fishing, electricity, textile or coal mining, which is the district the main character Katniss Everdeen comes from.
Many years ago, some of the districts rebelled against the capitol's dictatorship because of that, the government started a game, called - you guessed it - Hunger Games. A girl and a boy are chosen, or rather almost randomly picked from each district and together, the "tributes" are sent into a arena where they fight to the death and the last standing person wins glory and fame.
Through the three books The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay follow 16 year old Katniss Everdeen and how she is involved with the barbaric games Hunger Games and the Capitol's twisted schemes.
The trilogy is a exciting read for people in the teenage years as well as older. You can read it just for pleasure's sake, but you will most likely see that there are a lot of questions the book raises on today's society, just like a good science fiction novel should. I found myself wondering about the the ways our governments treat the citizens, personal freedom and poverty. Some may wrongly decieve the novel as just another love-triangle novel, but the reality is very far from that, because the books are way more than that.

Lastly, I would recommend everyone to pick up the first book and get lost in the pages! Have fun reading!

(if you want to see the difference between the society Collins made in the books and our modern society, I recommend this article)