"Happy Hunger Games!"

I swear I've said this to David at least twenty times in the last week.

On the trip home from my parents' house on Sunday we started listening to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and I'm hooked. We're only 40% through the book, as we started it with only three hours of our trip left, and had to pause it when Micah was fussy. (I can't handle too many different noises at once - it makes me feel really anxious... kind of like wrinkly sheets) Since then we've only listened to it when we're together in the car, so only on the way to work in the mornings. I guess this is one benefit of our second car dying... we have to ride together, so we get to listen to the story.

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Anyway, I really am enjoying the story so far, and I recommend it. Here's a brief synopsis from the back cover of the book:

Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives.

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death – televised for all of Panem to see.

Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

You should read this book - or listen to it in audiobook format. I'm loving audiobooks right now - they really make car rides more fun. Especially if you're with somebody really boring... which is never my problem.

There are three books in this series, so we're in for lots of time spent hearing about Katniss and her struggle to stay alive! I hear they're also making a movie of the story, which is supposed to come out sometime next year. I'm already looking forward to it.