The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins

I have read a fair amount of reviews for this book that rates this one very high, and its usually associated to the Japanese movie Battle Royale.

I liked Battle Royale movie (I am currently reading the novel) so I bought this book. And what those review i have read is right, this book rocks!
It is really like Battle Royale but the story added the factor of the game being shown live ala Big Brother.

The story revolves around 12 Districts and Capitol in a dystopian setting of North America that is called Panem. The 12 Districts each sends a boy and a girl chosen by lottery to compete in what they call the Hunger Games orchestrated by the Gamemakers of the Capitol.

Katniss, the main girl volunteered as a substitute for her sister that was drawn even when the odds are against the latter. Now, Katniss must survive the game wherein each player kills one another to be the sole survivor. That is one of the obstacle of the game, Hunger, of course, is also a factor in this game, as thus terrain wherein the Gamemakers have complete control.

This book kept me at the edge of each pages as I literally sneak to the next page as every page always make me want to know what will happen next. I had hard time putting this book down even staying up late with my usual sleeping time even if I have work on that day (I slept around 1 am).

This belongs to a trilogy, and the second book, Catching Fire is already out, the last book, Mockingjay will be out sometime around August.


I highly recommend this book.

12/12 district.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

Due to my reignited passion for reading, I looked for a book to read and found a review about this one.
On book caught my attention as the main character is mentally challenged.

Christopher Boone has Asperger's Syndrome, a type of autism, and is very logical and usually do things by Math. The book is presented as the result of Christopher's school project and tackles his adventure when he decided to investigate the murder of his neighbor's dog. Little did the main character knew (as I have) that this will lead to his discovery of things that is far from, yet, the reason for the dog's murder.

It is quite interesting to see how an autistic boy thinks and reacts to his surrounding (of course, base on the author's understanding of autism). I loved how he usually solve problems by relating to math and logical conclusion (as I'm a math lover myself :D).

A very good read (first book, I think, that I have finished in two day's time) and I had very hard time putting this book down to do something else. The turn of events of the story surprised me as I was not expecting the way the story unfold.

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Rating: 5/5 gray cells