Melanie's Reviews > The Hunger Games

Hello, I am back again with another breakdown review while I relearn how to write reviews. But basically the TL;DR of this review is that The Hunger Games truly holds up so well in 2020, and this reread was such a treat. I felt such nostalgia, happiness, and hope between these pages, and I already can’t wait to revisit this story again. Also, again, this review will have spoilers, so use caution if you don’t want me to tell you what happens in each chapter of this book!

“How could I leave Prim, who is the only person in the world I'm certain I love?”

➽ Chapter One:
This first chapter really starts off with a heartbreaking bang. We quickly learn so many characters, but we even more quickly learn what type of character Katniss Everdeen is. The basic premise of this tale is that there are twelve districts and once a year each district will select two young candidates to fight to the death in a game, which will also be broadcasted for the world to see. Every year, a teenagers name gets added once to this random selection pool, but each year they get older another time their name gets added. Also, you can add your name more times to get food and supplies for your family, and this is very much the norm for most children. Katniss’s sister, Prim, only has her name in the drawing once because it is her first time, where Katniss has her name added over twenty times. Yet, you see where this is going…

➽ Chapter Two:
Once Prim’s name is pulled, Katniss immediately volunteers to take her place in the games. Meanwhile, the boy contestant is Peeta Mellark, who Katniss remembers giving her bread when her family was starving after the death of their father. Together, they are thrown into a competition that no one believes they will be able to come back alive. Especially since only one victor is allowed, therefore one of them will most certainly have to die.

➽ Chapter Three:
Katniss is given her iconic mockingjay pin that will literally change the world as she knows it.

➽ Chapter Four:
Haymitch punches Peeta to make him look rougher, lol. The journey Haymitch is about to take alongside these two kids as their mentor, whew.

➽ Chapter Five:
Cinna (my favorite character), makes Katniss a fire dress in which the world has never seen, and will be the first time the world finds it extremely hard to forget her or her name. Also, unknown to Katniss, a start of a public romance is brewing with Peeta to help their image. We also get to meet President Snow and start to get a vibe of all the evil things he has been stirring up for some time now.

➽ Chapter Six:
Katniss and Peeta make it to the training center and they start to learn about the other candidates from the other districts. We also get to learn about the different privileges of the other districts, and how some of these candidates view this as an honor to volunteer their life for (without needing to save a little sister). We also get to see Rue, and it’s really hard to not feel like you want to reach into the pages and protect her yourself.

➽ Chapter Seven:
Katniss makes quite the impression with an arrow and an apple, that many important people of the Capitol find very hard to ignore.

➽ Chapter Eight:
This is the start of the Peeta versus Gale debate, and the brewing of a very opinionated love-triangle. For me, personally, I always think it’s obvious in Katniss’s inner monologue that she only likes Peeta, but I digress.

➽ Chapter Nine:
We get to meet Caesar Flickerman and see Katniss and Peeta’s vastly different interviews with him. Peeta is coached to very much play the star-crossed lovers card, and he even tells Caesar that he loves Katniss more than anything.

➽ Chapter Ten:
This is the start of Part 2, where they games are finally going to begin. And Cinna says my favorite line in the entire series to Katniss. So simple, so beautiful, so heartbreaking.

“I'm not allowed to bet, but if I could, I'd bet on you.”

➽ Chapter Eleven:
The twenty-four tributes are entering the game, and in the middle is a cornucopia filled with weapons and supplies… if you are brave enough to make a run for them. Peeta distracts her at the very start of the game, so Katniss doesn’t go for the bow. And we quickly see that people are starting to form groups to take out some of the weaker players.

➽ Chapter Twelve:
Katniss is proving that she will do whatever it takes to survive.

➽ Chapter Thirteen:
Katniss is still up in a tree, surviving, when she sees Rue and they form a silent plan together.

➽ Chapter Fourteen:
She does get the medicine she needs from someone out there watching her in the world, who is rooting for her and her life. After with the help of some killer, engineered wasps… she is able to get down from this tree and gets a bow.

➽ Chapter Fifteen:
Katniss teams up with Rue, while they come up with a big plan to make it a little harder for the districts teaming up with all the supplies.

➽ Chapter Sixteen:
Yeah, Katniss blows up the whole cornucopia.

➽ Chapter Seventeen:
Yet, while Katniss and Rue are trying to meet up again with their mockingjay signals, Rue gets killed by a spear. Katniss sings to her, and realizes that nothing will be the same in her life again, no matter how long she has left.

➽ Chapter Eighteen:
Katniss is trying to deal with the hurt and pain and loss as best as she can, but she also is very hard of hearing in one of her ears now. And she also knows that Peeta has been wounded and is missing.

➽ Chapter Nineteen:
But beyond all else, Katniss is a tracker and a hunter, and she quickly looks for Peeta at a water source and finds him. They also share a kiss when they find shelter, and she vows that she is not going to let him die.

➽ Chapter Twenty:
This chapter has some beautiful foreshadowing of giving Peeta some berries.

➽ Chapter Twenty-One:
Basically, at this point, each contestant needs a certain supply very badly, so they place the things they need back in the middle of the map, and Katniss goes to retrieve theirs. She does get very injured in the process but makes it back to heal him. Thresh helped Katniss because of what she did for Rue.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Two:
Peeta takes care of Katniss and they get more care-packages because they are now the Capitol’s OTP and everyone is rooting for them and their romance.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Three:
Thresh dies, and it breaks my heart every time because I highkey always root for him too. District 11 just deserved better. Cato is still alive, still the biggest threat, and still hella annoying. And then we have some more berry foreshadowing when a girl dies eating some.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Four:
Now that there are only three people left (Katniss, Peeta, and Cato) the game makers want them to finally put an end to the 74th Hunger Games once and for all. Kato runs at them, while wolves start running after them.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Five:
And we quickly find out that the wolves are none other than the people who died in the games. Well, I think at least. They for sure have the tributes eyes, and it just makes it extra freaky. But basically, after some fighting and some monologues, Kato is dying to the wolves slowly, but Katniss puts him out of his misery. They were promised earlier that if Katniss and Peeta were the final two of the game that they could both win and live, but now the game makers are trying to change that game right before them. And since they are saying there can only be one victor, Katniss takes a risk with those beloved berries and her an Peeta threaten suicide before all the people watching from the comfort of their own homes.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Six:
But because they need a winner, they decide two is better than none, so they both are able to live. Katniss wakes up in a hospital where her body is healing and she is able to hear out of her one ear again. She gets to see Cinna, and believe that maybe their lives will be normal again. But Katniss quickly realizes that the Capitol is terribly upset that she played with them, and they are not going to ignore her actions in the game.

➽ Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Katniss gets to see Peeta again, and they are forced to watch all the deaths that happened in the game during their winner’s interview. They both have taken so much damage physically and mentally, and they know that Snow is not through hurting them, or the people they love, by a longshot.

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Trigger and Content Warnings for loss of a parent, animal death(s), abandonment, depression, PTSD depiction, blood depiction, alcoholism, gore, violence, and murder.

Buddy read with Lea & Johely! ❤