The Hunger Games

4-4.5 keeping my original rating because i think 13 year old me deserves to have her enthusiasm and excitement registered on here. rereading this book was actually so much more fun than i thought it would be. there's a specific kind of joy to be found in knowing certain parts are going to happen but not remembering exactly how. this story is both incredibly harrowing and political and raw (and, as memory serves, those things will only grow stronger as the series goes on) but also surprisingly funny and heart-warming at times. suzanne collins knows how to balance the two well, and even though at this point in my (reading) life some things happened a little quickly or a little too obviously for my liking, i can easily see how important this book was and is. it set a standard for ya that i think very few other ya series have been able to meet. they've tried, but so often completely missed the bat as to what it is about this story that is so interesting. it's really not the love triangle, and it's really not (just) katniss being able to shoot stuff. it's the constant duality, the constant questioning of power; the power of the government, the power of ourselves, the power of our community. i got shivers when katniss receives the bread from district 11 after rue's death. the way collins lets us learn about this world, how unfair it is, how unfair it is to everyone all the time and we don't even know it (katniss thinks rue gets enough fresh food because she lives in district 11, she thinks peeta always eats well because he's a baker) because people in power don't want us to sympathise with each other and feel stronger in our unity, rather want us to be weaker in our division. tl;dr thg is and will be the og and it will always have a special place in my heart.