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Hello, fellow bookworms!
This week, Richelle Boyd delves into a series that has been in the pop culture consciousness for some time now: Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games. I remember the excitement when the movies starring Jennifer Lawrence hit the theaters; I went to the midnight premiere of the first one with a group of friends back in high school. However, as fun as the movies are, in my opinion, the books remain the best way to consume the story, as well as the lessons that Suzanne Collins implores us to think about and apply to our own world and society.
I may have only read the original three, but I’m strongly considering picking up the two sequels. I think there may still be lots for us to learn.
Happy reading!
—Tessa, allbooked@independent.com
If you’re still under the impression that the Hunger Games series is for angsty teens hoping to find love in a dystopia, I, as an avid fan since their release, would counter to read again. Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games are intricate critics on topical socioeconomic and political issues that are more pertinent to our world today than when she first started the series. And, like many other fans of Collins’s work, I know she only writes when she has something important to show the world.
The Hunger Games Trilogy: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (2008-2010)
If you didn’t know, Suzanne Collins came up with the idea for this trilogy while flipping through TV channels. She went from news channels covering worldwide wars to reality competition shows like Survivor. The effortless blend of this media and our society’s undeniable lust for both bore the idea of The Hunger Games.
Something you don’t get from the movies that is clear in the books is that these children are not just fighting for their lives — they’re fighting for food. The victor of the games brings a year’s supply of food back to their district, and every district in the country of Panem is starving on rations while the Capitol takes and hoards their food and natural resources.
The original trilogy follows the story of Katniss Everdeen, a young girl whose only goal is to protect her sister. When she becomes a tribute to compete in the Hunger Games and is thrust into the heart of Panem, everything is new and confusing. As a reader, you learn alongside Katniss exactly how this extravagance controls not only the tributes, but also the people of the Capitol. They are so out of touch with reality that for them, the Hunger Games feel like a season of Survivor, not life or death.
The original trilogy will force you to face the reality of our own world extravagance and the ways we exploit our own resources with little or no regard for those who are suffering in the world around us. It shows a rebellion that had been brewing long before one teenage girl volunteered for her sister and how she became the catalyst for the rebellion because her selfless act forced people to face their own complacency inside the system.
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (2025)
In a Scholastic press release, Suzanne Collins said, “With Sunrise on the Reaping, I was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few.’ The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”
For me, this book is some of Collins’s best work — every detail in the book is placed with intention, and you don’t have to know the history of the Hunger Games to discover how cruel and controlling the government of Panem is. This book, focusing on the 25th Quarter Quell games, brings twice the number of candidates into the arena of the gladiator-style games used not only as entertainment for the people of Panem, but also as a way to remind the citizens how little control they have of their own lives.
Collins highlights just how easily a small minority can effectively manipulate the system in place as well as the people within the system so that it turns into an unstoppable and well-oiled machine. The 25th games served as a turning point for cruelty and perfection, and you’ll find that whatever you knew about the games before is wrong. This book isn’t just about the dystopian world of Panem; Collins asks readers to question what’s really being shown and what’s being hidden.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins (2020)
Further delving into the world of the games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes provides a unique perspective from the villain himself: President Coriolanus Snow. This book, predating his time as a president, shows how the elite of this dystopian society live and view the districts. Told from Coriolanus’s skewed perspective, Collins shows a time in Panem before the games themselves became a phenomenon.
At the crux of the 10th Hunger Games, things aren’t looking great — most people are losing interest in rounding up children and watching them die. No one in the districts has been mandated to watch the games yet, and the technology we see in the other books is nonexistent. But this book helps to shape Sunrise on the Reaping and The Hunger Games trilogy by showing that the people of the Capitol haven’t always been blinded to the harsh reality they force the districts into, but instead were conditioned to believe that it should be that way.
This is where the games began to take the shape of a reality competition show. The people of the Capitol viewed the tributes as unthinking animals deserving of slaughter, but Coriolanus knows that for the games to be successful, the tributes need to be elevated and rooted for. And more than that, it expands on how the series villain learned how to use his obsessive need for control to social-climb until he could reach a seat of unlimited power — and there is nothing he wouldn’t do to get to the top.
—Richelle Boyd
FROM OUR PAGES
We’ve had some great author visits and interviews recently, so don’t miss out. Here is some of our book-related coverage from the last two weeks! Read all this and more at Independent.com.
Where Writing Isn’t So Lonely by Tiana Molony
UPCOMING BOOK EVENTS
Below, you will find a few bookish events coming up in Santa Barbara. If you are hosting a bookish event in Santa Barbara, be sure to submit the event to our online events calendar.
Fiction in Translation Book Club
Wednesday, May 7, 5:30 p.m. | S.B. Central Library
UCSB Reads Author Event: Ross Gay
Thursday, May 8, 7:30 p.m. | Campbell Hall, UCSB
Book Fair Benefiting Monroe Elementary School
Friday, May 9, 6-8 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books
Kids’ Storytime with Area Author Mike Bender: Bored Panda
Saturday, May 10, 3 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books
The Write Your Book Summit
Monday, May 12-Thursday, May 15 | Online
Book Talk and Signing: Barbara Edelston Peterson
Tuesday, May 13, 11:30 a.m. | Jewish Federation of Greater S.B.
Grace Fisher Book Club: The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
Thursday, May 15, 1 p.m. | Grace Fisher Foundation
Silent Night Book Club
Friday, May 16, 6 p.m. | Carpinteria Community Library
Book Talk: Outcasts of Essex by Jane Hulse
Saturday, May 17, 3 p.m. | Tecolote Book Shop
Book Talk: The Dao of Flow with Jin Young Lim
Sunday, May 18, 3 p.m. | Chaucer’s Books
S.B. SPOTLIGHT
We at the Independent get many books sent to us by area authors, sometimes too many! It’s practically impossible for us to read and review them all, but just because we are busy bees does not mean that they aren’t worth the attention. In an attempt to not completely drop the ball, we have compiled a list of books here that are either written by a Santa Barbara author, feature someone in our community, or have another tie to Santa Barbara. I urge you to look through this list. Perhaps you will find your new favorite read!
The following are the most recent titles that have been sent to us.
Homo Deus, book two in the Until This Last series by Felicity Harley
Kvell: A Word You Should Know by Barbara Edelston Peterson
If you are a local author and would like us to feature your book in this section, please email allbooked@independent.com with the subject line “S.B. Spotlight.”
Book Reviews Courtesy of CALIFORNIA REVIEW OF BOOKS*
Thanks to the generous contributions of David Starkey, Brian Tanguay and their team of reviewers at California Review of Books, we are able to provide a steady stream of book reviews via our content partnership. Recent reviews at Independent.com include:
A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith; review by Brian Tanguay
What Art Does: An Unfinished Theory by Brian Eno and Bette A.; review by George Yatchisin
*At the present time, all of the Independent’s book reviews are provided in collaboration with California Review of Books (calirb.com).
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