The Hunger
The Hunger Games is a 2008 dystopian novel by the American writer Suzanne Collins. It is written in the perspective of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in the future, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in North America. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, exercises political control over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games is an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12–18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle royale to the death. The book received critical acclaim from major reviewers and authors. It was praised for its plot and character development. In writing The Hunger Games, Collins drew upon Greek mythology, Roman gladiatorial games, and contemporary reality television for thematic content. The novel won many awards, including the California Young Reader Medal, and was named one of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of the Year" in 2008. The Hunger Games was first published in hardcover on September 14, 2008, by Scholastic, featuring a cover designed by Tim O'Brien.
Themes & atmosphere
What you might want to know about The Hunger
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In the spring of 1846, the Donner-Reed wagon train rolls out of Springfield, Illinois bound for California. As the families pick a shortcut through the Wasatch and Great Basin and an early winter closes the Sierra passes, something else begins picking off the oxen and the children at night.
The most commonly searched is The Hunger by Alma Katsu (2018), a horror novel reimagining the Donner Party with supernatural elements. Stephen King praised the novel publicly.
The Hunger fictionalizes the real Donner Party expedition of 1846-1847, in which 87 emigrants attempting to cross the Sierra Nevada became trapped by snow and resorted to cannibalism. Alma Katsu adds a supernatural threat.
The Hunger is 399 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Hunger takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
The Hunger is a standalone novel by an unknown author, not part of a series.
The Hunger is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.