Ratings

Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content

Guide to Rating System

LANGUAGE

VIOLENCE

SEXUAL CONTENT

ADULT THEMES

Title:  The Hunger Games

Author: Suzanne Collins

New York Times Bestselling Author

Ratings Explanation

Violence:  Katniss is a hunter.  She cleans her kill.  Katniss’ father is blown to bits in a mine explosion.  Katniss could be shot on a daily basis for hunting.  Peeta Mellark is brutally struck by his mother when he burns two loaves of bread and later sneaks them to Katniss, who is starving.  Peeta’s cheek swells and his eye is blackened.  As Katniss and Peeta are both drawn as tributes for District 12, Katniss thinks, “Thank you won’t seem sincere when she is trying to slit his throat.  Oh, well…  There will be twenty-four of us.  Odds are someone else will kill him before I do.”  Boys and girls from the wealthier district are trained to kill from an early age.  Katniss recounts previous Hunger Games and the manner is which the contestants die; bludgeoning one another with spiked maces, starvation, thirst, venomous snakes, extreme cold.  She also recounts extremely vicious kills.  Katniss grapples with how terrible it will be to kill another.  Haymitch punches Peeta in the jaw.  Katniss drives her knife into the table, barely missing Haymitch’s fingers.  Katniss reproaches herself constantly for falling prey to Peeta’s kindness.  “Don’t be so stupid.  Peeta is planning how to kill you, he is luring you in to make you easy prey.” The servants in the Capitol are Avox’s.  Avox’s are traitors who are punished by having their tongues cut out.  Katniss is reminded why she is in the Capitol, “to die a bloody death while the crowds urge on my killer.”  The roof of the Training Center has an electrical field surrounding, in case a tribute tries to commit suicide, the field will throw them back on the roof.  Katniss loses her temper with the Gamemaker’s ignoring of her skills.  Katniss skewers the apple in the pig’s mouth with her arrow as the Gamemaker’s look on in disbelief.  Katniss shoves Peeta into an urn, which shatters and his hands are cut.  Brief mention of cannibalism in previous games, eating someone’s heart after they were killed.  When the games begin, Katniss grapples for a backpack.  The boy coughs and splatters her face with blood.  She then sees the knife in his back.  A girl runs towards Katniss clutching half a dozen knives, the blade lodges in Katniss’ backpack as she flees.  A pack, the strong, band together to hunt down the weak, then when the tension becomes too great, they being to turn on one another.  The Gamemaker’s set the woods on fire to flush the tributes out of hiding and force them to fight.  The Gamemaker’s shoot fireballs at Katniss, to make the game more interesting to watch.  A fireball skids across Katniss’ left calf, severely burning her.  Katniss cuts down a deadly hive of Tracker Jackets.  The hive falls on her opponents.  A tribute dies. Cato catches an opponent in a headlock and breaks his neck.  Rue is speared to death.  Katniss immediately avenges Rue’s death, with an arrow to the young boys neck.  Cato slices Peeta’s leg to the bone.  Thresh kills Clove with a rock in the temple of her head.  The dead tributes have been altered into “Mutations”, huge wolves, who are let loose on Katniss, Cato and Peeta.  The mutts attack Cato, who is wearing body armor.   The mutts mangle Cato’s flesh all night long, through the body armor.  In the morning, he is a pulpy fleshy mass who mouths “please” to Katniss.  Katniss performs a mercy killing by shooting him in the mouth with an arrow.  Katniss and Peeta contemplate suicide as the rules of the Hunger Games are changed and they are faced with killing one another.

Sexual Content:  Gale hugs Katniss goodbye and she is more aware of his body than ever before.  Jabberjays mate with female mockingbirds.  Katniss’ entire body in waxed and cleansed.  Katniss stands completely nude as the three stylists circle her, wielding tweezers to remove any last bits of hair.  Cinna the head stylist walks around Katniss’ naked body, not touching, but taking in every inch of it with his eyes.  One year, District 12 tributes were stark naked and covered in black powder to represent coal dust.  Katniss does not want to be nude on TV.  Katniss kisses Peeta.  Katniss and Peeta kiss again, and Katniss feels stirring inside her chest and she wants more.  Peeta holds Katniss in his arms and they fall asleep for the night.

Adult Themes:  Katniss’ mother must have really loved her father to leave her home for the Seam (ghetto), to see her children turned to skin and bones.  Katniss is not a forgiving type.  Katniss threatens her mother not to check out of caring for Prim while she is gone competing in the Hunger Games.  Twelve year-old Prim needs a mother.  Katniss never wants to have kids, it is to difficult to fill their bellies.  Reaping:  System where the poor are more likely to be drawn as tributes.  You become eligible for reaping the day you turn twelve.  Your name is entered once, at thirteen twice, until in your final years of eligibility, your name goes into the pool seven times.    However, you can add your name more times in exchange for grain and oil to eat.  Starvation is not an uncommon fate in District 12.  The victims of starvation die in the street.  The Peacekeepers retrieve the bodies, and starvation is never the official cause of death.   The only victor in District 12’s history is Haymitch, who is currently a sloppy drunk.

Synopsis

“Panem is a country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America.  There were brutal wars for what little sustenance remained.  Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, brought peace and prosperity to its citizens.  Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol.  Twelve districts were defeated,  and the thirteenth obliterated.  The Treaty of Treason gave new laws to guarantee peace and, as a yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.  The rules of the Hunger Games are simple.  In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate.  The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland.  Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death.  The last tribute standing wins.  Forcing the districts to watch them to kill one another – this is the Capitol’s way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy.  How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion.  The real message is clear.  Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there’s nothing you can do.  If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you.  Just as we did District Thirteen.  To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others.  The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food.  All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.  Tribute is synonymous with corpse.”  These are the words of our heroine, Katniss.

Katniss’ twelve year old sister, Primrose’s name is drawn as a tribute.  Katniss volunteers to take her young sister’s place.  Katniss took over as the head of her family at age eleven when her father died and her mother became severely depressed and could not care for her daughters.  They were slowly starving to death.  Katniss learned to hunt to sustain her mother and sister.  Katniss is a strong young woman who grapples with anger towards the capitol, and her mother’s abandonment as she fends for her family.  Katniss willingly fights in Prim’s place.  Katniss cautiously navigates her survival throughout the games as she weighs friend and foe.

Admittedly, I was captivated by “The Hunger Games”.  Unfortunately, the level of violence is extraordinarily high and extremely graphic.  Although written at a 5th – 6th grade level, I cannot recommend this book for young readers.  Mature readers ought to proceed with caution.

©2009 The Literate Mother