Talk about drawing you in and hooking you. That is exactly what this series did to me. I am not a fiction reader but a profuse reader of non-fiction. I have a saying that I occasionally read fiction while on vacation, just for fun. The truth is, I rarely ever read fiction. This series has possibly changed that. I say possibly because I am still reeling from all of the thoughts and emotions that have welled up inside of me while reading these three books.

I think of how realistic the story is, I mean we have read about and witnessed things happening through the history of our world that are very similar to the story of this series. No, we do not send adolescents into war in America and no we wouldn’t fathom anything like the Hunger Games being a sport as such that we would tune into to watch on television and go so far as to place bets on who would win.

Would we?

If you haven’t read them or haven’t let your teens read them because you fear the aspect of kids killing kids, I would go so far as to read them with my teens. The fact is, the kids in the story never wanted to kill others. They were forced by the government to participate in the annual Hunger Games to remind people to never again rebel against the powers that be. I do not believe this would cause people to desire to go out and kill others, just my opinion.

Katniss – Katniss is the main character in the series, she is the MockingJay. Now, if you haven’t read the books, you may want to skip this part because I am going to give away some important information that will take away your suspense and possibly spoil the story for you.

You have been warned!

The government crossed a bird called a Jabberjay with a Mocking Bird and created a MockingJay. They did this to train them to go out into all of the districts and essentially listen to what people were saying and come back and repeat it to the government. However in the end the people became wise to their tactics and started making up things for the birds to report back to the government. The government then abandoned them to die out, only they survived. The MockingJays were seen as one of the only things to ever defy the government and their control. Katniss also became one of the few things to ever defy the government by her actions in the Hunger Games, therefore, she became the MockingJay.

Like anyone, Katniss many times in the story wanted to just die and be released from the terror she had been forced into. It was always the love she had for her family and even people she didn’t know that kept her in the games. She knew if she gave up the people would stay in bondage forever. Someone had to stand up and make a difference and Katniss was the one to do that.

I would love to have a coffee-house night and discuss these books. Anyone interested?