Hunger Games Summary

The book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a captivating dystopian adventure story about the nation Panem. Panem is divided into 12 districts, of varying amounts of wealth, plus the Capitol which is wealthier and more powerful than all the other districts. The Hunger Games follows the story of Katniss Everdeen from District 12, the poorest district. Katniss’s father dies when she was young so she has been forced to feed her younger sister Primrose, who she loves more than anything, and her mom.

Over her years of feeding her family, she has become a skilled archer. Every year, the Capitol forces all the districts to participate in the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games consists of 24 young adults, 12 male and 12 female, being placed in an arena and fighting to death. The story follows the 74th Hunger Games and from District 12 the names who were drawn were Primrose Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. In a courageous effort to save her sister, Katniss Everdeen volunteered in place of her sister. Katniss and Peeta then head to the Capitol to start their training with their mentor, Haymitch.

In their opening interviews, Peeta reveals to the crowd that he has a crush on Katniss. Katniss thinks her and Peeta being “Star-crossed lovers” is an act set up by Haymitch to gain appeal for sponsors and to entertain the crowd but throughout the plot we learn that Peeta’s crush on Katniss is not fake. At the end of their training, each of the tributes get scored. Peeta scored an 8/12 which is very good considering he is from the the poorest district and Katniss scored an 11/12 which is absurd. Sadly, as soon as the games begin the star crossed lovers get split up. Katniss immediately goes in search for water and Peeta forms an alliance with tributes from lower districts. After a few days apart, Peeta’s alliance chases Katniss up into a tree and they decide to wait her out. However, while in the tree Katniss, with a little help from the District 11 tribute Rue, drops a Tracker Jacker nest on the alliance. All but one tribute escape with only few stings, and the one girl dies. After this Rue, who is the youngest tribute, and Katniss have formed their own alliance. The two of them go on to blow up the alliances supplies and in the process Rue is killed. Katniss then shows compassion and decorates Rue’s body with flowers which the Capitol is not so fond of.

Shortly after this, the Gamemakers add a new rule where there can be two winners if they are both from the same district. Katniss sets off to find Peeta and when she finds his, he is camouflaged to the rock and has badly injured his leg. Katniss takes care of Peeta and they hide out in a cave for a while until Peeta’s leg can heal. While in the cave, Katniss realizes that the more she plays up the love aspect between the two of them the more sponsors they are going to get. Katniss starts to kiss Peeta and have meaningful conversations just to get the supplies they need from the sponsors. However, Peeta thinks Katniss is genuinely falling in love with him. When it gets down to the final few districts, the Capitol puts a bag with exactly what the person needs at the cornucopia, the center of the games.

Peeta doesn’t want Katniss to go, but she tricks him into taking a sleeping medicine so she can go to aquire the bag. When she safely returns to Peeta and opens up the bag, and jams the hypodermic needle into Peeta which saves him. After much more scavenging, eating and playing up the love scenario, The games are coming to an end. The Gamemakers decide to unleash muttations, huge wolf like animals, to bring all the tributes together. Katniss makes one last kill at the Cornucopia, and her and Peeta think that they’ve done it, they’ve won. Except, an announcement comes on over the loudspeaker declaring the earlier rule revision to have been revoked and there will only be one winner. After all the weeks together, Katniss and Peeta realize they will not be able to survive together. They decide to both eat poisonous berries so that the Capitol will be forced to let both of them win because if not, the Capitol will have no winner. Just as they thought, the Capitol allows them both to win, but when Katniss and Peeta return Haymitch tells them the Capitol is not happy with them because they have outsmarted the Capitol.

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