the hunger games trilogy

the Hunger Games trilogy is a young-adult adventure science fiction series written by Suzanne Collins. the trilogy consists of the Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay. the first two books were each the New York Times best sellers, and the third book, Mockingjay, topped all US bestseller lists upon its release.

the Hunger Games trilogy takes place in an unidentified future time period after the destruction of the current nations of North America, in a nation known as “Panem”. Panem consists of a rich Capitol, located in what used to be Rocky Mountains, and twelve (formerly thirteen) surrounding, poorer districts which are under the hegemony of the Capitol. as punishment for a previous rebellion against the Capitol wherein twelve of the districts were defeated and the thirteenth destroyed, every year one boy and one girl from each of the remaining twelve districts, between the ages of twelve and eighteen, are selected by lottery and forced to participate in the “Hunger Games”. the Games are a televised event where the participants, called “tributes”, must fight to the death in a dangerous outdoor arena until only one remains. the winning tribute and his/her corresponding district is then rewarded handsomely with food and plenty, seeing as the lower districts are starving.

Each book in the Hunger Games trilogy has 27 chapters and is further divided into 3 sections of 9 chapters each. Collins says that this format comes from her playwriting background, which taught her to write in three acts. Her previous series, the Underland Chronicles, was written in the same way, as Collins is “very comfortable” with this structure. She sees each group of nine chapters as a separate part of the story, and comments that she still calls those divisions “act breaks”.