Summary of the First Hunger Games Book
The book tells the tale of a place called Panem a very rich city that is vibrant and very modern. The city otherwise known as the capitol has other twelve districts that work to supplement the needs of the capitol. To remind them of their victory against their rebellion several decades ago, the district have to select by lottery each year two young representatives to participate in the Hunger Games. In district twelve, Katniss Everdeen has to volunteer to take the place of her twelve-year-old sister Prim. Peeta Mellark, a boy who once gave Katniss a loaf of bread years before, is selected as the male tribute from their district.
Haymitch a mentor from their district together with Ceena their appointed stylist work hand in hand to make the two something of a sensation to the residents of the capital. The fact that Katniss is very good with a bow and arrow and Peeta can lift very heavy weights ensures that the two get very good odds on the leader board. On his interview with Caesar Flickerman a television host, Peeta reveals that he has always had a crush on Katniss.
Finally, the games begin, and Katniss finds herself alone with a gang of Career Tributes who want to kill her when she realizes that Peeta is one of them. A young girl from district eleven comes to her aid and helps her escape from the determined group of careers. Her instinct to survive and her highly adaptive nature help her survive in much life threatening situations. She finally teams up with the girl Rue that saved her from the wrath of the career tributes. Although they function very well as a team, only one tribute can survive the hunger games. Katniss and Rue develop a strategy to steal supplies from the cornucopia, but Rue does not survive the event when another tribute uses a spear to stab her.
Rue’s death completely affects Katniss. However, an announcement that is made it easier for two tributes coming from the same district to survive. This act gives Katniss her hope again and causes the search for Peeta. However, she finds him very sick and injured. She hides him in a cave where she helps to nurse him and presents from Haymitch and medicine that she retrieves from the cornucopia. Thresh the tribute that came to the games with Rue saves her life at the cornucopia. Some moments later, she is involved in a contest with another female tribute.
In the cave, Katniss and Peeta express their feelings for each other and their romance progress as they nurse each other back to health. To find enough food to survive, Peeta forages for fruit and vegetables while Katniss handles hunting. After returning from hunting, Katniss discovers a pile of poisonous berries collected by Peeta without the knowledge that they were not edible. Katniss makes a decision to keep the berries with the ulterior motive that they might need to use them for tricking Cato, who is the only other remaining tribute. After some time, the two realize that they have to go to the cornucopia as the streams they relied for water have dried up.
Katniss realizes that Cato, who is running towards their direction, is being chased by pack of creatures, which strangely resemble wolves while at the same time human beings. The strangely engineered wolves are actual mutants developed from the dead tributes made by the capitol. After a dangerous battle between Katniss and Peeta against Cato on top of the cornucopia, Cato losses to the two and they push him over to the ground where he is overpowered by the creatures. Body armour enables him to sustain his life for long but eventually gets shot by Katniss shoots because of pity. The both assume that they have won only to be interrupted by an announcement stating that one winner can only win the game. Since neither of them is ready to kill one another, they convince each other that they should take the poisonous berries and die together. However, the announcer stops them from eating the berries and finally declares them winners.
After they finish recuperating from their wounds, Haymitch tells them that they are still not safe. The capitol is very convinced that the stunt that she staged for both of them to eat the berries was undertaken out of defiance. The two now have to continue pretending to love each other the sake of their lives even though Katniss is still in love with another boy from district twelve.
