Hunger Games (Hunger Games #1)

Hunger Games (Hunger Games #1)

Suzanne Collins 

In the ruins of a place once known as North America, lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between ages twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before- and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
Excerpt taken from book flap.

Language 

H***- 3

S***-

A**-

B****-

F***-

D***-

Bas****-

Religious Cursing-

J****-

Chr***-

G**-

Derogatory terms etc-

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

A man enters a stage completely drunk. He ends up falling off and knocking himself unconscious. Later he speaks in slurs and vomits. At a breakfast, he fills his juice with liquor and has been seen putting down handfuls of money at a bar. He is always seen drunk. He agrees to help two tributes if they don’t interfere with his liquor and he promises to stay sober enough. Then he grabs a bottle.  The tributes later joke he shouldn’t be near any open flame because of his alcohol. 

A young woman (16) takes a drink of wine. She sips it for a bit the realizes her head is foggy so switched to water.  A man accepts a glass of wine. 

A man takes a swig from a flask.  Later, someone jokes that he needs a drink. 

Leaders have been drinking too much wine. 

A man dips a pork chop in his wine. 

A man drinks during a long conversation. 

A young woman gives a young man sleeping syrup without him realizing it. 

A young woman eats berries that are poisonous and is killed. Two more almost eat the berries. 

A frantic young woman is given a shot of something that makes her pass out. When she wakes, she tries to remove a restraint but feels a liquid injected into her and passes out again. This happens multiple times. 

People become increasingly intoxicated as a party wears on. 

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

A young woman sleeps in her underwear. 

A young woman hopes her stylist doesn’t require her nude. 

A young woman stands nude in front of her four stylists as they circle her. 

One year, tributes were nude and powdered with coal dust for opening ceremonies. 

A young woman is wearing a see-through gown. 

A young woman worries that an injured man covered in camouflage is naked underneath. She has to strip him of his clothes due to some injuries but she leaves his undershorts. Later she realizes how dirty they are and hands him a cover so she can wash them. 

A young man asks for a kiss multiple times but at awkward moments so the young woman laughs. Later, she kisses him. Then kisses him again to wake him. She kisses him briefly as a goodbye. They kiss later, the young woman feels a stirring in her chest and wants another kiss. There is another brief kiss. Another long kiss. A small kiss. Small kiss. Small kiss. 

A young woman wakes in a hospital-like place and notices she is naked under her bedclothes. She later is getting prepped for an appearance and in a room with others, notices how thin her naked body is. 

A couple kiss in front of a crowd. Another kiss. 

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

A young woman attempts to drown a cat in a bucket, too worried about one more mouth to feed. 

A girl hears a mother yelling and the sound of her hitting her son. 

A Game is played where two teens from each district are put in a life-threatening arena and are forced to fight to the death.

A young woman hopes a young man will be killed in the reaping before she has to. She wants to thank him for something but doesn’t feel like she can if she’s trying to slit his throat. 

A young woman thinks of weapons and remembers a reaping where everyone was given a spiked mace to bludgeon each other.  Another year it was a desert and many were bitten by snakes or went insane from thirst. Another year there was no wood and many died of the cold. 

A young man tries to convince a young woman that killing people is the same as killing animals. 

One tribute from years ago acted like a fool but tricked everyone cause she could kill viciously. 

A man punches a young man in the jaw. A young woman drives a knife between his fingers. 

An Avox is someone who has committed a crime and has their tongue cut out. She had run away with her boyfriend and the boy was shot with a spear and killed. A young woman wonders if the Avox will enjoy watching her die because she didn’t save her. 

A young woman worries her family will be negatively affected- even killed for some of her behavior. 

A young woman shoves a young man, causing him to fall, break a vase and cut himself. 

A previous tribute resorted to cannibalism after his kills. He was viscous and ganemakers had him stunned with electric guns to remove the bodies before he could eat them. He was killed in an avalanche and it is rumored to have been purposeful. 

If tributes step off a platform before their time, land mines will blow their legs off. One year, a tribute dropped something small and it set off the mines. They “literally had to scrape bits of her off the ground.” A young woman and young man grapple for a backpack but he coughs blood in her face and she sees a knife sticking out of his back. Then she notices another tribute with knives coming toward her. A knife is thrown at her but sticks in backpack. A dozen tributes are “hacking away at one another.” Several are dead. She debates on killing a person who she sees as a hazard, but a group attack her, she pleads but they kill her. A forest fire rages, a young woman barely escapes. In the rush, she gets burned on her calf and hands. She remembers a man brought to her mother, a healer, with a gaping thigh burn, charred flesh, showing the bone. The man died. She is chased up a tree by tributes trying to kill her. She cuts down a hive of deadly insects to get them to leave. The insects can cause hallucinations, intense pain and possibly death. One tribute is stung multiple times and twitches as she dies. Another tribute breaks many of her fingers to release a bow and arrow. She rolls her over but skin disintegrates and she can’t tell if it’s a hallucination.   Many more tributes run off. Another one dies. No details. 

In the agriculture district, if you eat the crops, they whip you in public. A intellectually challenged boy tried to keep night vision glasses and was killed. A tribute admits to cutting a young man, assuming he will bleed to death.  

A tribute sets off explosions that shoot her far backwards. She injures her ear, it’s bloody. She then watches a tribute take another in a headlock and twist, breaking his neck. Another tribute is take up in a net and shot with a spear. A tribute kills the one who shot the spear. It’s an arrow into his neck. He yanks it out and drowns in his blood as he collapses.  

A young woman finds blood on rocks. She finds her friend and he has multiple injuries. A burn, stings and a large festering cut. 

While running, a knife is thrown at a young woman. She turns and shoots an arrow hitting another young woman in the arm. Another knife is thrown at her, gashing above her eye, blood running down her face. She is then knocked down by the young woman and pinned. The one pinning her is telling her she will make her death a show and chooses a knife. The one pinned tries to bite but the other grabs her hair and says she will start cutting her mouth.  Then the young woman is screaming and being thrown off her. She is held upside down by a very large young man, then thrown. He grabs a large rock and asks if she cut up his friend. The girl that was thrown dies from him shattering her skull on a rock. 

Muttations (huge wolf-like creatures) chase a young man then two more. A young woman takes one down with an arrow but there are more. She shoots another in its mouth, and another. One reaches a young man and he has to stab it multiple times. Another is shot with an arrow. A young man grabs another young man in a headlock. He is cutting off his air and the boy already has a large gash from a mutt. The young woman shoots the young man and he releases the other, then falls over the side into the pack of wolves. He fights for quite some time, human sounds and animal sounds intermixing. He falls silent and the mutts drag him. The others can still hear him moaning. He begs the mutts to finish him off for hours. “The raw hunk of meat that used to be my enemy” is then shot out of mercy. 

A young man loses too much blood, passes out and is operated on. His heart possibly stopped twice. 

A young woman believes a man is threatening her and potentially trying to cause an “accident” to kill her. 

Potentially Intense Themes

A man would’ve been publicly executed for selling a bow and arrow. 

A young woman (and many more) have to hunt in a forest to survive. 

Teens have their names entered into the reaping each year, the number getting higher with age. If food is needed, their name can be put in more times for exchange. The poor are highly affected by this. 

There were many disasters, droughts etc that ravaged the continent, then the seas rose and then war. The reaping was formed as a punishment for the uprising, each town/district giving up one boy, one girl, to be imprisoned in an outdoor arena and fight to the death. Only one wins. 

A twelve year old gets volunteered.

A father was killed in a mining accident. The mother never mentally recovered and the 11 year old took over household duties. 

Starvation is common in their town. Their bodies are often found in the streets. 

Stealing is punishable by death. 

A young woman dreams disturbing dreams of older games, her emancipated sister etc. 

A young girl is killed with a spear. Another tribute is heartbroken. She sings to her and lovingly takes care of her body. 

The muttations are made from humans.