You have to have heard of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. It hasn’t become quite as much a part of the vernacular as Harry Potter, but when the first book came out in 2008, it was an instant best-seller. The other two books in the trilogy met with almost the same enthusiasm. And then there are the movies. Huge hits, all of them.

I started rereading the series and I gotta tell you, they still hold up. In case you actually have been living under a rock, there was a huge rebellion against the Capitol in what used to be the United States. When the Capitol finally prevailed, they decided it would be a really good idea to grind down the population in the 12 Districts outside of the Capitol until everyone was pretty much continuously starving and/or sick, while those in the Capitol lead a privileged – that is to say, decadent – lifestyle. And just to really rub it in, they instituted the Hunger Games. Each District must offer up one boy and one girl between 12 and 18 – names drawn at random – to compete in a fight to the death. So, you’ve got twenty-four children who have to do their best to kill each other.

District 12 has only had one victor in the Games’ 74-year history: Haymitch, who is constantly drunk. He’s the one who mentors each year’s “tributes,” as the children are called, knowing he will watch them all be slaughtered, despite his best efforts.

This year’s tributes are Peeta Melark and Catniss Everdeen. Almost as soon as the Games start, you know why Haymitch is always drunk and you know that the child left alive at the end is not really the winner. The winners are the kids who die very quickly as soon as the Games start.

Catniss is the character you get to know best since she is the 1st-person narrator, so I think we have to consider her the main character. The thing is, though, she’s not all that likable. You have to admire her, yeah, for her knowledge of how to live off the land and her pure chutzpah. But admire is not the same as like. She is always angry and bitter, and refuses to care about anybody except her little sister, Primrose, or Prim. Which is certainly understandable, just not fun to watch. When comparing herself to her father and sister, she even says that people deal with her for business reasons, but they liked her father. And everyone loves Prim. But Katniss… I kept wanting to shake her and scream, “Let it go!” or “He’s trying to help you!” Or even just, “Say thank you, you little twit!”

She is not at all without redeeming qualities, I just think Ms. Collins made such an interesting choice in having a main character like that. I can’t tell you why, but it works. I’ve reread the first two books so far. I know how they end! I read them before, I saw the movies, and I still couldn’t put the books down. I was late getting places, my legs fell asleep reading on the toilet (don’t we all do that?), I’d get to bed really late. It was amazing.

And I can’t tell you how Ms. Collins does it. Usually, I can get a pretty good idea of how the author is creating the feel that they are, what literary devices they are using, that sort of thing. Couldn’t do it with this one. She’s fantastic. Check out these books … even if you’ve already read them.