Suzanne Collins
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers in place of her younger sister as District 12's female tribute in the country's hunger games, an annual survival-of-the-fittest, and becomes entangled in a bigger game with higher stakes.
Oft compared to the Japanese film "Battle Royale", the series, composed of three books - "The Hunger Games", "Catching Fire", and "Mockingjay" - goes further than the brutality and horror of "kill or be killed" and focuses on the characters and the world that produced the games. It feels like a coming-of-age story, except the reader knows that Katniss grew up before her time in the name of survival.
The best book in the trilogy for me is "Mockingjay". I think it is the most real of the three books. It shows us that we don't always get what we want. People sometimes come to hate the ones they love. And love does not make our family and friends immune to suffering and death.
Heroes die. Winning the war does not mean that things will immediately become better. It may take years, even generations, for true change to be felt. But as long as there is life, one must not give up.
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