Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games: Can one book ruin a trilogy?

Losing yourself in a book can be amazing. You get to know a handful of characters for a short time, and if the author is successful, you almost forget they aren’t real.

In The Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins creates a world with incredible characters. They are strong-willed and driven. And they remind her audience that even the strongest people are still human.

In the first book, The Hunger Games, we are introduced to the main character Katniss, a teenage girl who assumes responsibility for her mother and younger sister after her father’s death.

An incredible twist of events thrusts Katniss into a situation where she faces death at every turn and she is forced to fight for her life at all cost.

Katniss emerges victorious, but sustains immense emotional turmoil.

The second book, Catching Fire, picks up less than a year later when Katniss is once again forced into the same fight-to-the-death situation.

Again, she emerges victorious, and up to this point, she has remained a strong-willed character. But, as a reader, you soon see the toll these life-or-death situations have had on this teenage girl.

By the time we reach the third book, Mockingjay, Katniss has endured immense pain and emotional suffering. But now she is safe from ever being forced into that life-or-death situation again.

Katniss is exhausted and for the first time since the death of her father she can relax. She no longer needs to provide for her family and she can be a normal teenager for the first time.

Collins succeeds in creating a terrifyingly realistic world and a character her audience can relate to. She successfully proves that no matter how strong of a fighter and survivor you are, in the end, you are all still human.