As morbid as it is, the world Suzanne Collins has created in The Hunger Games is strangely appealing. Despite the bloody premise and the violence that is as graphic as it gets for younger readers, it’s hard not to find yourself imagining the stakes if you were to participate in the annual Hunger Games, an event built around the myth of Theseus and the minotaur as well as being based on the structure of the Roman gladiator games.

The actual Hunger Games event was created by the dictatorial government of the Capitol as a form of punishment for the districts’ uprising against them 74 years ago. This concept itself is quite an unexploited area of young adult writing, although not completely unique. We’ve seen this ‘kids fight to the death till the last one remains standing’ idea before in the novel Battle Royale by a Japanese author called Koushun Takami, but The Hunger Games is still a refreshing breath from the usual clutter of paranormal romances and over-clichéd chick lit.

The story follows a strong female protagonist named Katniss Everdeen, aged 16. She lives in District 12, the mining district as well as the poorest of all 12 districts. When her younger sister’s name is called during the Reaping (the event in which the 2 tributes, a boy and a girl, are chosen by lottery), she steps up to take her sister’s place. We then see through her eyes as she experiences a week of luxurious living, good food and lavish treatment in the Capitol, the rich city that turns a blind eye to the 12 starving districts that are dying on their doorsteps.

The celebrity treatment given to the 24 tributes seems pretty pointless at first glance, as they will be thrown into an enclosed arena to hack away at each other and 23 of them will inevitably die. However, we see in this how enticing the Capitol makes it for them, what with the glamour and the cheering crowds - so impossibly alluring that the tributes are bound to have second thoughts at least once during their short-lived stay in the Capitol. Maybe this isn’t so bad after all; Being a tribute isn’t as horrible as I thought. What a shock when they’re jerked out of their temporary luxury and chucked into the arena to play the game of survival!

As all young adult stories do, there is a love triangle. The lovable, goofy boy who doesn’t think he stands a chance with the girl he loves, and the mysterious, brooding boy who is best friends with the girl he loves, yet never seems to want to admit his feelings. Peeta Mellark and Gale Hawthorne respectively. Both have walked different paths of life, both have different perspectives of life, and both fall in love with the same girl who somehow remains completely oblivious to their affections, instead reasoning it with insistent ‘He’s waiting for the right moment to kill me’-s and ‘Our relationship is completely platonic’-s.

Yet it is all sound reasoning, as Katniss has made it clear from the beginning that she would never want to marry and experience the love that leads to children of her own. How could I bring a child into this world? she constantly muses, terrified of facing the possibility that she might one day have to watch her child die on a television screen if she ever chooses to marry and have kids.

The love triangle itself is merely a subplot. It isn’t the main body of the book, but rather a form of conflict. The main message of the book is clearly written in the brutal murders that are described in unflinching detail, in which we ultimately see how much of an animal even the most cultured person could become when faced with death. Humanity versus survival becomes the main question at hand for these tributes.

Another piece of modern day culture is also subtly hinted at, that being our obsession with reality television. The residents of the Capitol treat the Hunger Games as a form of entertainment, betting on how long a tribute would live or even donating money to sponsor whichever tribute they choose. Naturally, sponsoring a tribute wouldn’t actually be from the kindness of their hearts but more of a game of poker in which they would have bragging rights if they had the winning hand. The Capitol residents’ lives clearly revolve around the Hunger Games, a fact which is evidently being thrown at us directly in the face, reminding us of how we tune in to reality television with such feverish excitement to watch the lives of people we don’t know; complete strangers.

You have to ask yourself at one point : Is this where we’re all headed? Ten, twenty years from now... Will we end up taking reality television to such extremity?

When Katniss and the other 23 tributes, including Peeta Mellark (the male tribute of District 12), are tossed into the arena, we find ourselves turning the pages faster as Katniss races through the crowd of dying children and victorious tributes, willing her to survive the bloodshed.

Even when she’s resting high up in a tree, we tense up at the slightest mention of rustling leaves or the cry of a mockingjay (the cross breed of a mockingbird and a Capitol invention called the jabberjay). Deaths of course, occur every now and then as the days pass in the arena. As the numbers begin to dwindle, the tension builds and more devastating deaths are abound and even a rule change in the Hunger Games occurs.

Suzanne Collins’ writing style is crisp, concise and very much what every aspiring young adult author hopes to have when they write in this genre. The writing flows smoothly with great transitions and character development in certain characters. Having said that, the author hasn’t yet fully developed many interesting characters that have potential, but haven’t had much ‘camera time’ in the book, so to speak, as it is written in the first person. Such characters would include that of Gale Hawthorne, Effie Trinket and Cinna, Katniss’ stylist.

Another weak spot to point out would be Ms Collins’ tendency to write the story in such a way that it plays out too much like a movie. Under normal circumstances, readers wouldn’t mind so much, and given the author’s background in television screenplay writing, it would be excusable. However, there are certain unnecessary additions of action sequences that may be too much of a stretch when there’s already so much going on.

The strengths still outweigh the flaws despite its screenplay-like format and this trilogy is on the fast track to a breakout year, which will be when the squealing of “May the odds be ever in your favour!” no longer attracts weird looks but instead knowing looks.

Catching Fire, the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy was released in local bookstores mid-October ’09 after many painstaking emails to Scholastic Malaysia demanding for its release, and the third and last untitled Hunger Games book is slated for an August 24th 2010 release in the United States. Knowing Scholastic Malaysia (or anything Malaysian, really), we’ll probably get it about a month late. So try not to go anywhere near Wikipedia in August and September, for fear of spoilers.

This book will suck you in faster than a vacuum does a dust mite and no matter the blood and gore, you’ll still fall in love with the characters and the setting. The only question now that is left to ask is; Team Gale or Peeta? We shall know on August 24th.