Book Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I know. I know. I’m years late from doing this post. I was on a reading hiatus and I just regained my momentum this year. I first saw The Hunger Games trilogy in 2010 while I was in the US. My colleagues and I were invited by our teammates, a Filipino couple who migrated in the US years back. I was intrigued by the hardbound books sitting on their center table and asked the husband’s permission if I could read the synopsis. He told me that he is very much addicted to the series. I promised myself that I’d buy the complete set when I get back to Manila but my wedding preparations got in the way. The movie was then shown a couple of months ago and I went to the cinema without a single knowledge of The Hunger Games. Since I didn’t set any expectations, I liked the film and got more intrigued with the book. But that still didn’t make me go to the bookstore and purchase my copy. If not for my husband who gave me The Hunger Games set on our first wedding anniversary, this post would have not been possible.


As I said, I liked the film. But after reading the book, I realized that the movie greatly pales in comparison. I know that it’s absurd to compare the two since it is extremely difficult to compress such an exciting book into a three-hour film. While I was reading the book, I realized that I failed to understand a lot of things from the movie. I am not sure if it was just bad acting or I wasn’t really paying attention. But all this time, I thought Katniss was mad to Peeta for throwing the bread in the mud. Sorry, but her facial expressions made me think that way. Haha! I was also wondering why Rue trusted Katniss so much. I learned it from the book too.

If you’re like me who got to watch the movie without reading the book, I suggest you read it. It will surely give you a different perspective. If Rue broke my heart in the film, I cried buckets of tears when I got to read it. It wasn’t shown in the film but the gift of District 11 to Katniss is also very heartwarming. Though it may sound irrelevant, the presence of the Avox girl also made an impact to me.

Despite the controversies surrounding The Hunger Games because of its violent plot and what others claim to be an unoriginal storyline, I have to say that it is a GREAT read. The writing style is very simple. The author let the readers go inside the protagonist’s head. It was impossible for me to bring down the book which only means that there is no dull moment. Coming from someone who has already watched the film adaptation, that means something. I felt that every chapter is a cliffhanger. And as soon as I finished reading it, I got more engrossed to the series.

Catching Fire, I’m coming!