"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
I love every part of this book. There's never a dull moment.
I love the characters (yes, I cry when Rue dies, the strategy aspect of the book (the outfits Cinna and Portia design, the way Haymitch and Katniss communicate during the Games, how Katniss performs for the cameras in order to encourage sponsors, etc.), and the resulting confusion and distrust that Katniss feels as to what is real and what is just part of the Games.
I also love how you can compare the society in the novel to ours today. It's definitely something to think about and discuss.
A little thing that bugged me was when Katniss meets an Avox whose capture she witnessed and in remembering that moment, she thinks "The girl's scream. Had it been her last?" (I also read a similar quote recently in Glass Sword .) Why do people think you can't scream without a tongue? There's nothing wrong with her vocal chords. Actually, screaming is probably the only vocal sound that would not be affected at all by lack of a tongue and yet that's what authors like to tell us their tongue-less characters are unable to do...
Anyway, some more praise:
I remember the first time I read it, I thought Collins did a good job of answering my questions about that world just as I had them, without it seeming like an information dump.
Also, when I saw the movie for the first time, I was already expecting to cry during the previously mentioned moment, but I cried unexpectedly when Katniss volunteered for her sister. I think when I was first experiencing the story, knowing that Katniss is the protagonist, so obviously she has a fighting chance, It didn't really hit me that from her perspective, she was going to die for Prim. In that moment, she had no expectation that she might actually win the Games. I probably would have had that realization in my second reading of the book as well, but it just hit me for the first time when I saw the movie. And now, I fight tears reading both of those moments.
It's a powerful book. Definitely worth reading more than once.
2012 Audiobook Review: i liked the normal voice of the lady who read it, but her character voices annoyed me most of the time. her haymitch voice was the best.
