The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

I wanted to read this book to find out what everyone was talking about. It was better than I expected; I actually did get caught up in the story of survival, and I enjoyed reading it. A 16-year-old girl in a brutal, post-apocalyptic world volunteers to take her young sister's place in an annual spectacle in which 24 teens are dropped into a vast arena and forced to fight to the death on live TV. The plot is rather far-fetched, even for science fiction, and the characters and dialogue rather flat and unconvincing. There was altogether too much emphasis on food and clothing for my taste. Still, I liked the tough, ass-kicking heroine.