Book Setting

After devastatings wars that destroyed all of north america, a new civilisation emerges. America is now called Panem and is run by the Capitol. Panem is made of 13 districts that all provide some kind of produce to the Capitol in order for them to function. However, life in those districts is hard. People are poorly treated and kept under strict military regimes. They are forced to work for the capitol and are given the bare minimum to survive. 74 years before the start of the story, a war broke out between the citizens of Panem and the Capitol. Unfortunately, the Capitol won and to destroy the rebellion in the citizens of Panem, they created the Hunger games and cut down their rations.

The Hunger Games is an annual world-wide televised shows where a boy and a girl, between the ages of 12 to 18, from each district fight to death in a special arena. However, some kids from nicer Districts train from a young age to participate in the games, creating the pack of careers. They are often the winners. At the age of 12, the child's name is added once in the name pool, but as they grow, that number increases and at 18 their names are added seven times into the name pool. Furthermore, the Capitol allows those children to sign up for Tessaraes, extra rations of oil and grains, in exchange of their names being added into the name pool every time they sign up. The citizens of the Capitol enjoy the Hunger Games like it's a harmless competition, some can even sponsor the tribute by sending them gifts in the areana. Meanwhile, the citizens of Panem are forced to watch their loved ones kill each other.

The hunger Games

The Hunger Games is the first book of the trilogy. In it, we follow the story of Katniss Everdeen, a 16 years old girl, who lives in District 12. Ever since her father died, Katniss has been taking care of her family by hunting illegally in the woods around her District. This year, her sister, Primrose Everdeen, turns 12 and, despite Katniss' effort to prevent her sister's name from being entered more than once, she gets chosen as a tribute. Without thinking, Katniss volonteers to take her place and becomes a tribute for the 74 annual Hunger Games alongside Peeta Mellark, a 16 year old boy who gave her bread when her family was starving.

During a tribute interview for the Hunger Games, we learn that Peeta is in love with Katniss, giving them the image of star-crossed lovers. This combined with her love for her sister makes her quickly gain popularity in the Capitol, and although she doesn't like it, it becomes very useful to her during the game.

Thanks to her hunting skills and her quick thinking, Katniss manages to survive through the games, defiying death multiple times and outsmarting her opponants. Halfway through the games, a change of rules happens, and it is declared that tw tributes from the same district could win together. Katniss rushes to find Peeta, playing up the romance, and together they survive until the end. Unfortunately, the change of rules was revoked and Katniss, angered by the Capitol's action, decides to die alongside Peeta, leaving the Hunger Games without a winner. Of course, moments before they killed themselves, the Capitol backtracked and announced them both winners of the 74th annual Hunger Games.

Catching Fire

Catching Fire is the second book of the trilogy. In it, we follow a terrified Katniss, survivor of the Hunger Games who tries to go back to her old life. Her rebellious act during the games attracted a lot of attention to her, painting her as a symbol of freedom, of defiance, which gravely angered President Snow. Unfortunately, even once the winners leave the arena, the game doesn't end. While pushing through her trauma and PTSD, Katniss has to tour across all of Panem to celebrate hers and Peeta's victory. During this tour, she also has to convince everyone, including the President, that her actions were influenced by her love for Peeta, even going as far as to getting married with him at the age of 17.

However, it's already too late. During her tour, Katniss only managed to reinforce her rebellious image in the eyes of the Districts despite her efforts to follow the rules her professional team and mentor give her. Once the tour finally ends, the 75th annual Hunger Games are announced. Every 25 years since the start of the Games, a quarter quell happens where a special twist is brought to the games. This year, the twist is that the tributes will be reaped from the pool of existing tributes, assuring Katniss' return into the arena.

Despite her fear, she makes a pact with her mentor to ensure that they will do everything in their power to protect Peeta during the games, slowly realizing that she might have feelings for him. This time around, her and Peeta enter the games with a group of allied, which increases in numbers a few days after the start of the games. Together, they managed to survive the deadly areana and discovered it was in fact a clock, every hour bringing a new wave of horrors to avoid. Around this time, Katniss and Peeta also start wondering if they needed to slpit up soon from their allied, but decided to stay with them at least until Beetee, one of their ally, had put his genius plan into action. However, things don't go has they were planned and Katniss ends up injured and seperated from Peeta. While searching for him, she stumble upon beetee and realizes the true intentions behind his plan, causing her to commit one more act of rebellion againts the Capitol: she destroys the arena.

Mockingjay

Mockingjay is the third book of the trilogy. In it, we follow a broken and empty Katniss who, despite her pain, fights against the Capitol. After being rescued from the arena by her mentor and a few other people involved in the growing rebellion, she starts a new life in District 13, which was believed by all to have been eradicated from Panem during the war. There she is once again forced into a role she doesn't want: The Mockingjay, symbol of the rebellion. At first she isn't cooperative, having difficulty dealing with her trauma and the guilt of knowing Peeta was captured by the Capitol, she disobeyes her schedule and hides in supply closets to calm herself. The leaders of the rebellion decide to film her acting out some motivational speeches in order to highjack the Capitol's world-wide broadcasting and reinforce the rebellion by showing that Katniss is alive and strong. This doesn't go well since she isn't able to perform convincingly so they start filming her in more natural environment, where she gets to be herself.

This ended up being successful and after a few touching and enraging broadcasts to the districts, the rebellion strenghtened as they became united. Halfway through the book, Katniss becomes more and more worried for Peeta has his appearance increasingly worsens with each of his apparition on the Capitols' tv programs. During one of his interviews, the district 13 highjacks their broadcast which causes Peeta to momentarely regain control of himself. He took the opportunity of the confusing situation to warn Katniss and the District 13 of the oncoming bombs, before being publicly beaten. Thanks to his warnings, everyone survives and Katniss demands from the leaders of the rebellion that they rescue Peeta before the Capitol kills him. Unfortunately, after his rescue, Peeta is changed. While being tortured, the idea that Katniss was a monster was implanted in his mind, causing him to hate and fear her. As time passes, Katniss starts training and respecting her schedule in order to be sent on a mission in the Capitol. However, once she arrives in the Capitol's war zone, she realizes that she is once again only there to be filmed, which angers her. As well, when Peeta becomes part of her crew despite his slow recovery, she starts questionning the true intentions of the leader of the rebellion.

Katniss' mission takes a turn when her bodyguard dies and gives her exclusive access to the map of the Capitol. She then decides to go rogue and to go kill President Snow by herself. By doing so, Katniss and her team move through the Capitol, avoid their killing traps as best as they could before reaching the town's square where the citizens of the Capitol waited for help from the President. In the end, Katniss is separated from her friend, Gale, during an attack and fights her way to the front of the crowd, where the children of the Capitol are being kept safe. When the attack dies down, and the medical personnel of the rebellion start attending to the injured people in the crowd, a Capitol jet flies over them, dropping bomb disguised as the Hunger games sponsporing gift's. Many people, including a lot of children, died causing the rest of the population to turn against the President. Unfortunately, Primrose also succombs to this attack, and Katniss gets gravely injured. After her recovery, she is chosen to execute the President in front of the whole nation, but instead she kills the leader of the rebellion and leaves President Snow to dies by himself, choking on his own blood after years of hidden sickness.

Epilogue

While Katniss is sent back to her house in District 12, the leader of the Rebels in District 8 becomes the new President, and a new era of peace starts in Panem. Katniss, however, has a hard time getting over what happened during the last 3 years of her life. But slowly, with the help of a head doctor and eventually Peeta, when he comes back to join her a few months later, she starts getting better. Finally, a few years after the Hunger games ended, she started a family with Peeta, something she said she would never do at the start of the trilogy.