I picked up The Hunger Games at the library on impulse. It was on a featured YA shelf, right by the check out counter, and I’d been meaning to read it in a vague way. Jia of Dear Author gave it an A, and Stephen King himself wrote a B review for Entertainment Weekly. Both reviews I read a few months ago and then promptly forgot about.

I’m not going to write a detailed review (the two above are more than adequate), but I will go ahead and rave. This book was AMAZING. I started it on Friday night and I was on the edge of my seat, white-knuckled and wide-eyed, until I surrendered to exhaustion in the wee hours of the morning. I got up at 7 a.m. and went right back to it. Coffee, but no food, and no email. No email!

I can’t remember having this kind of reaction to a book–ever. I’ve stayed up late before, and I’ve been gripped. I mean, I love to read, obviously. But this is more like OBSESSED. I’m definitely in awe of Suzanne Colllins’ storytelling. This book is like a how-to manual in grabbing the reader by the throat, tugging on the heartstrings, and continually raising the stakes. OMG the stakes! I weep, just thinking about them. Wow.

The basic premise is a reality TV survival game, set in the bleak future, in which the contestants (all of whom are ages 12-18) must battle to the death. The heroine volunteers to take the place of her little sister after the girl is chosen from a mandatory draw.

There are some similarities to The Running Man, a novella by Stephen King that I’ve also read and enjoyed. The film version was pretty cheesy, if I recall.

I also feel compelled to mention Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country For Old Men. Not because the two stories are remotely alike, but because my reaction to them was similar. When I saw this in the theater I was enthralled, every single second. I couldn’t even blink.

This book and that movie: suspense at its best.