Inside Books: Surveying The Hunger Games

Chances are you’ve read, seen, or at least heard about The Hunger Games, the young-adult book and film sensation by Suzanne Collins.

The crux of the story centres on The Hunger Games itself, an annual event in a dystopia in which twenty-four teenagers are forced to fight each other to the death – the winner is the sole survivor. Unsurprisingly, this has proved rather a controversial storyline. While the film has smashed box office records and the books have sold over 23 million copies, the books are also among some of the most complained about works in America. (Albeit in good company with To Kill a Mockingbird and Brave New World.)

Key to the controversy is all the violence. Indeed, the brutality is very shocking, made all the more so when seen on screen, when the youth and vulnerability of the contestants is visually inescapable.