So I sat down to start this book a few days ago when I was all set to start babysitting, but had twenty minutes to kill and a hankering for a coffee from Starbucks. I went to Starbucks (where they have started to recognize me...), got my coffee, sat down in a cozy armchair, and set an alarm. (I have learned to set alarms!) When my alarm went off, alerting me that it was time to leave I was fifteen pages in and scowling. No! I didn't want to go babysit! I wanted to keep reading! Finally, when I had this free afternoon with which to do absolutely nothing (and having previously done some serious 'damage' to the Christmas knits), I put my cozy slippers on and went to town. Well, I easily read 75% of the book in one sitting (with the exception of a break to bake some Christmas cookies) and I have to say that the book was everything it promised to be. It's tough nowadays to pull that off, I think. There is so much overdone in any genre of fiction, and so I was very pleasantly surprised to find this book was both original and a story well-told. I was worried about two things, primarily. One, that the writing style wouldn't be great (because, well, look at how popular Twilight is, despite Meyer's style) and two, that it wouldn't be graphic enough. It's a Young Adult book - and I worried that it would be toned down. (Kind of like how I can't really forgive several of the Harry Potter movies for their PG ratings.) The story of the book is graphic (it's about a competition of 24 people fighting to the death - it kind of has to be!) In any case, both of my fears were never realized, as it is both extremely well-written and doesn't spare us the gory details. To be clear, I don't relish in violence or extremely vivid detail... I just prefer that the author do justice to their story. The last thing I have to say about the book is that the story itself was a lot more self-sufficient than I thought it would be. It left just enough of an inconclusive conclusion at the very end of the book to make me want to start off immediately and go buy the next one (or, let's face it, the next two. I won't be put in this position again!) but it wrapped up the individual story of the book very well. Kudos to Suzanne Collins!
Likelihood I will reread: 100%
Likelihood I will recommend to others: 100% (as I have already done so)
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Page count: 855
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