Chapter Seven: Mockingjay (Hunger Games III)

The final book of the Hunger Games trilogy may have been my favorite!  It kept me guessing right up until the end, which I always appreciate in a book.  I also liked how the plot continued to thicken in interesting and difficult ways; it would have been easy to have this final installment be merely a neat wrap-up based on the end of the second book, but Collins didn't go that route.  Katniss is also presented with even more difficult choices than before, and we really get to see her grow as she struggles with them.
I really liked the ending--it was just what I wanted--but I almost bawled as I read the end, partly from the content and partly because I was sad to be done with the series!  I'll miss Katniss.

Chapter Six: Catching Fire (Hunger Games II)

Once I was finally able to get my hands on a copy of this book (at first the college and town libraries' copies were out), I burned right through it!  While the writing itself remained a bit wimpy, the plot thickened deliciously.  Politics take much more of a role in this book than in The Hunger Games, and this added a really interesting dimension to the book, especially given the vitriolic election season that was gripping the nation as I was reading it.  Katniss is allowed to mature nicely, by no means overcoming all of her flaws, but having another chance to face up to them.  But beware--the ending's a real cliffhanger!  It was all I could do to restrain myself from forgoing my homework and starting the next book immediately upon finishing Catching Fire.

Chapter Five: The Hunger Games

Now that everyone's been talking about Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games for four years, I finally decided to read it and see what all the fuss was about.  While I will admit that the quality of the writing is not amazing, I was hooked by the end of the first chapter.  The plot is fast-paced and compelling, to be sure, with plenty to thrill and terrify and keep a reader turning the pages, but I was also intrigued by the book's heroine, Katniss.  It's nice to have a strong female character, and Katniss is complex and multi-dimensional as well.  She's not always sure about what she feels and whether she's doing the right thing, and in her grappling with these issues of self-evaluation she becomes a really interesting character.  By the end of the book, I was left hungering (if you will) for the next installment, with the characters still haunting my mind.