Writing Challenge Day 3 - review a movie/book/anything

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games, a young-adult dystopian science fiction, is the first installment to a trilogy (Book 2: Catching Fire and Book 3: Mockingjay) by Suzanne Collins.

Set in the ashes of what used to be North America, stood the country Panem divided into 13 districts. The heroine 16-year old Katniss Everdeen hails from district 12, the coal-rich district.

Each year, as punishment to a previous unsuccessful rebellion, in each of the remaining 12 districts they pick out a boy and a girl as "tributes" for the annual Hunger Games, where 24 of the kids (12-18 years old) kill each other until one becomes the victor. 

What gives a strong message with this story is the power and the down-fall. How preserving oneself can  get you through all the madness. Courage and toughness to do whatever it is for the people that matter to you. I guess that was why Katniss survived. She didn't play for the glory and the blood lust but so she could get back to Prim and her mother. 

For a story that is as violent as this, it is surprising that actually a big factor that makes the story just wonderful (an understatement) is that it was all out of love. Katniss volunteered to be tribute out of her love for Prim. Gale took care of Katniss's family because he loved her and cared deeply for her family. Peeta teamed up with the career tributes to protect Katniss out of love. Katniss's mother got sick, got deeply depressed when her father died because of pure love, and how she described the way her mom looked at her dad. How Peeta's father pointed to him, shamelessly, the love of his life which was Katniss's mom and there Peeta also found his own love of his life. Haymitch incessantly drinks to forget the horror of the hunger games and the memory of his family who perished in President Snow's hand because he loved them too much... Even President Snow show a form of love, the love for power.

I guess that's how we relate to this story. We have our own battles, and we conquer them if we are brave enough, we have our own objects of love and devotion, family, friends, or other people.

May the odds be ever in your favor.