Suzanne Collins puts an interesting twist on post apocalyptic North America in her book, “The Hunger Games.”

The book reminded me of a cross between the television show Survivor and George Orwell’s novel 1984. The futuristic society is engaging, yet brutal in the way two tributes from each of the twelve districts are chosen by raffle to compete in the annual Hunger Games, a televised fight until death which every citizen has to watch.

The reader  does not have to wait for the action to start, because it starts on the first page. Once I picked up The Hunger Games, I didn’t put it down until I was done.

I found the main character Katniss very relatable. She volunteers to take the place of her younger sister in the games, and sends herself into the arena. Even if you don’t have Katniss’s strong personality, she is relatable in her family struggles, her love life and her challenges in the arena.  Her sidekick, Peeta, will win the heart of readers in his artistic gentleness.

At first, I was pulled into the book by concept alone. The description reminded me of gladiator fights and television drama. But outside of these themes, “The Hunger Games” has something for everyone.   The stakes of life and death are always on the table but the cut-throat plot is rounded out by an underlying love triangle between Katniss, her best friend and hunting partner Gale and Peeta.

This book puts adrenaline into its characters, as they face situations today’s America can’t imagine.

I found the reading easy and clear, no plot lines were dropped and nothing went unresolved except the answer of whom Katniss will choose, Peeta or Gale. The love story aspect of the story is left as a cliff hanger baiting readers into the next of the series. For a relatively short book, it packs adventure and suspense into every page. Collins created a world that I might not exactly want to live in, but I couldn’t stop reading about.