With all the hype surrounding this book (and soon-to-be movie!) I half expected this book to not live up to expectations. However, I am very pleased to be wrong! It’s a clever, thrilling sci-fi story, with twists and turns that make it impossible to put down. The story itself is like a cross between Stephen King’s Running Man and Battle Royale, with each of 24 children having to kill their opponents until only one is left, watched on TV by the rest of Panem (a post-apocolyptic USA). Despite being aimed at the ‘Young Adult’ Genre, the writing is so clever and engaging that it’ll clearly appeal to young and old alike. The chacters are well developed, the plot well-paced and constantly interesting and it’s so well written that you believe you could very well be in the forests of the Hunger Games arena. Although the ‘love triangle’ aspect has been done to death in these teen fiction books, it’s done in a more subtler way and the romantic theme is less of a focus than other books of a similar genre.